Memory
by Cordria
Summary: After Maddie learns about ghost-human hybrids from the GiW, Vlad offers her a choice: keep her memory of Danny's secret, or save her family. What's her memory worth?
1. Chapter 1

A last minute NaNo project dreamed, plotted, and written during the last week of November, because otherwise I would have been a complete and epic failure. Enjoy seven days of rambling.

Cross-posted on Tumblr. Check out my tumblr blog for several tumblr-only stories!

Loosely inspired by the song, "I Will Remember You" by Sarah McLachlan.

_Weep not for the memories…_

* * *

><p><strong>Memory<strong>

A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Cori

_What's a memory worth?_

* * *

><p>Chapter 1<p>

* * *

><p>Her shoes squeaked on the waxed floor. Next to the steady click-click of her companion's shoes, the squeak sounded childish, like she was wearing wet sneakers in school, following around a teacher to find dry socks. She tried to walk a little straighter, to not have her feet swivel when she stepped, but it only resulted in a louder squeak. With a held-in sigh, she stopped worrying about it and surveyed her surroundings.<p>

The walls were as shiny and polished as the floor. Her reflection gazed back from the opaque, white plastic walls. Buzzing fluorescent lights gleamed overhead, placed too close together to cause much of a shadow. Everything was bright and glistening and blindingly white.

It was almost like Heaven, if she believed in such a thing. Even her companions were dressed in white, from their crisp uniforms to their glistening shoes.

She wasn't dressed in white. She was a glaring splash of color against the monotone background. Originally, her dress had been red. Red was far from her favorite color, but it had been a small concession. He'd wanted red – blood red – and she'd agreed when he'd given her that smile. Now, though, it was stained strange combinations of red and brown and green.

Her gaze flicked back over to her reflection, walking behind the reflections of her two white-dressed companions. The dress was ripped and torn, almost indecent if she took too big of a step. Her hair, which she'd spent hours trying to make look nice, hung in black, ragged strands around her face. Her makeup was smudged from tears.

And thick, heavy manacles held her wrists bound together before her.

It was supposed to be one of the most magical nights of her young life: prom. And with the guy she'd fallen desperately in love with. She'd planned for months to get the money to get the dress she wanted. She'd rented a limo. She'd made sure to pick him up at the front door of his house and gave him a ride to the dance.

The men in front of her stopped, causing her to stumble backwards a step rather than plow into them. They certainly wouldn't want to get her stained clothes on their pristine white.

The thought made her glance backwards, suddenly understanding the squeak of her shoes. Greenish footsteps trailed down the hallway. A mar of color. A grin crept at the corner of her mouth.

"Inside."

A door had been opened. She glanced from one of the guards to the other, then raised her chin and straightened her back and stalked into the room like she was the queen of all she could see, rather than a dirty prisoner. The room was white – she wasn't much surprised – and a single chair sat in the middle of the room.

"Sit."

There was the clicking sound of the door closing and locking. A tingling buzz ran through the floor as a variety of ghost shields snapped into place around the room.

"Can you possibly speak in multiple-word sentences?" she asked, trying not to sneer and failing miserably. It was simply not a good night to be polite. Not after everything that had happened.

"No." There was a hand at her shoulder, pushing her towards the chair.

"Alright, alright," she muttered darkly, shaking off the hand and stalking towards the chair. It reminded her of the old-style electrocution chairs. She'd seen one in a museum not that long ago. Straps ran around the chair, ready to bind a hapless victim in place. She hesitated before the metal chair. Its legs were welded into the ground. She could feel the buzz of the ghost shield running through the chair itself.

A click and a whirr made her glance to the side. A sickly green glow filled her vision. The barrel of an ecto-rifle, pointed straight at her head. "Sit," the man said again.

Very gingerly, she sat. The electromagnetic field running through the metal of the chair made her nerves tingle unpleasantly. She shifted, trying to find a way of sitting that allowed as little of her body to touch the chair as possible.

Her guards were having none of that. One pushed her back against the chair, solidly planting her firmly against the cold metal. She hissed at the sensation as her manacles were released and her arms and legs and torso were belted to the chair. Color seemed to dance before her eyes like rainbows.

"We're ready, Sir," one of them said.

She turned an evil eye on him. "I knew you could speak a proper sentence," she muttered.

The man ignored her. Rifles still charged – she wondered for a moment how long the batteries would last with a charge at the ready like that – the men flanked her, weapons pointed in her direction. Then the door creaked open.

"Miss Masters," came a slimy-sounding voice.

Pushing the worst of the sensation from her mind, Danielle Masters sat up as much as her bindings would allow her. She couldn't see very far through the oil-like rainbows. The far end of the room where the door was located was just a wash of colors straight out of a 60's music video. "You are…?"

"Couldn't keep your fingers to yourself."

Danielle didn't bother to answer. If whoever this was wasn't going to answer her, she certainly wasn't going to answer him.

"Now."

A vague shape appeared through the rainbows. She struggled to keep herself from squinting and trying to make out the form. From here, it looked something like the Slenderman pictures people posted to the internet. Long, spindly, with too many arms.

"That chair must be uncomfortable."

She gazed in his direction, not willing to comment on that. Of course the chair was uncomfortable. It was reacting to the ectoplasm in her blood. It was, honestly, a good thing she'd mostly used up her ghost energy getting caught – otherwise she would probably be screaming in pure agony.

The thought made her grimace. Her body was constantly recreating the energy she'd used. This chair would get more and more painful as time ticked by. There was definitely a clock running on this encounter.

The form of the man walked forwards, losing some of the fairy-like proportions but remaining tall and skinny and, strangely, keeping some of the extra limbs. "I don't know entirely what to do with you." A hand appeared in her vision, snagging her chin, and making her head turn from side to side.

Danielle flinched backwards, snapping the back of her head against the chair, startled that he'd been close enough to touch her. It wasn't just her color vision that was wonky – apparently so was her ability to judge distance. She could have sworn he was still a dozen feet away.

"We've been tracking you for months." The fingers were cold, and they tapped against her jawbone. "Collecting all sorts of interesting data."

"I know." The words slipped out despite her decision to remain quiet. She focused on his eyes, which seemed to swirl from orange to red and back. There also seemed to be three of them – two normal eyes and one that shifted from the end of his nose to the top of his forehead. She wondered for a moment if this was what it felt like to be high on drugs, then forced herself to focus. "Your men aren't exactly winning World Best Spy awards."

The face nodded. The third eye crept down to his chin and then dripped onto the floor. "And yet you were so overconfident in your abilities that you remained. What were you doing to that poor young man?"

"None of your business," she muttered, trying to jerk her chin from his grasp. With her body trussed up, she didn't succeed.

He let go of her chin, however, rubbing his hand on a cloth. His fingers left behind some streaks of strange color. "It is my business," the man said. "Humans are my business. Protecting them, especially from things like you."

"I wasn't hurting him." Fury at the accusation slammed through her, causing the ectoplasm in her blood to spike. She screamed in pain as the chair reacted, her vision going white.

She sagged against the straps. It felt like energy had been drained from her. No doubt this strange chair had done something to her. She blinked furiously, trying to force herself to stay awake. "Wasn't," she mumbled.

"All the fight goes away so fast," the man said. She felt his cold fingers brush hers, then creep up her arms. She squirmed, uncomfortable with the sensation, as the fingers paused on her upper arms. "Always does."

She glared at him, having had more than enough of this. His face looked to be only a few inches away, but she didn't know for sure. Little, psychedelic things crawled over and under his skin. "Let me go."

He shook his head. "No." The fingers appeared on her face, carefully tracing over her eyebrows and then down her cheekbones. "Unacceptable."

Pulling at her wrists, Danielle felt her heart start to beat faster. Tied to this chair, there was very little her ghost would be able to do to help her in this situation. Even if she were out of the chair, she was far too tired to call on her ghost powers anyways. It was why she'd been captured.

"Such a young girl," the man whispered. Then he sighed, stood up, and walked away. His body turned back into the Slenderman-like shape from earlier. His voice turned hard and empty and forceful. "You have been possessing that young man on and off for months. You coerced him to attending a high school dance with you by directly manipulating his brain chemistry."

"That's not-" She broke off, biting her lip. It wasn't totally untrue. That just wasn't how it had gone! "You have to-"

"I don't have to let you do anything." The man's voice was sharp and dangerous. "We have you tied to eight bank robberies across the state, and implicated in about a dozen more. You've manipulated the authorities and school officials into believing your little lies through the use of your abnormal abilities. That young man you coerced is in the hospital. His brain barely functions without your help anymore."

She stared down at her knees. Her life definitely wasn't going the way she dreamed it would, but that really wasn't how it had gone. She was too young to get a job – how else was she going to get money? And she hadn't taken that much, and it had all been from the bigger banks that could afford it. She had no birth certificate, no papers, no legal identification. How else was she going to attend school and have something resembling a normal life? And the boy… She loved him. She hadn't been hurting him. She just knew what was best to keep him safe. "Nobody died," she said stubbornly.

"That's your moral compass setting? It's okay if nobody dies?" The man sounded slightly incredulous. "Your mind is that far gone?"

"My mind's not gone!" she snapped, pulling at her wrists again. The wave of exhaustion had mostly faded, leaving her feeling like there were ants crawling around under her skin. "And I'm not a bad person-"

"Yes," he interrupted. "You are. You steal. You manipulate to get your way. And when that young man started to resist your orders at the dance, you nearly killed him. Murder is just next on your list."

Her fingers crept into fists. "Everything would have been fine if you hadn't shown up!" she said, forcing herself to remain calm. She couldn't do another of those shocks because she let her powers get out of control. "It only went bad because you-"

"And unable to accept the responsibility for your actions. Blaming others for things that are mostly your fault," he said.

"I'm not evil!" Her breathing was harsh and broken, her body shaking from the effort of containing her abilities. Silence fell through the room.

Then he spoke again. His voice was soft and understanding. "No. You're not evil. Not yet. And you won't ever."

"What does that mean?" she whispered. He was walking around her chair, circling like a shark or a vulture ready for a meal. She tried to follow him, but with her vision on the fritz it wasn't working very well.

"None of that blood on you is yours," he said. "None of the ectoplasm either." He chuckled. "You landed eight people in the hospital with serious injuries trying to get away from us." The cold hands settled on her shoulders. His breath rustled the little hairs by her ears. She forced down a shiver at the feeling. "We want our recompense."

She stared straight forwards, trying to appear unaffected by his words. Inside, however, her stomach was twisting. She was only eighteen, for God's sake. She'd only been alive for six years. She didn't deserve whatever this man had in his mind. "What are you going to do to me?"

She could feel the warmth of his lips near her ear. "I'm going you a choice," he said. "Because…" his voice trailed off and she felt some of the dirty strands of hair dangling around her eyes get pushed back behind an ear.

"Shove it up your ass," she hissed, jerking away from the touch of his fingers. "Whatever you're selling, I don't want."

He laughed, low and dark. "So it's okay if you manipulate others to get what you want, but it's not okay if I manipulate you?"

"I'm going to burn a hole through you big enough to drive a truck through your empty heart," she breathed, trembling with the effort it took to keep her eyes from glowing. "I'm going to hang your head from a streetlamp. You and everyone you love."

"Nice threat." He backed up a few steps, walked around to the front of the chair, and dangled something before her eyes. It was some sort of box with buttons on it. A rainbow-colored remote control. "Two options, Miss Masters. Play along, or utter destruction."

She spat a mouthful of spit at him.

"Death it is," he said blandly. "Maybe we'll learn something from your dissection after you stop breathing."

One of the guards finally spoke up. "Doctor Marion wanted one alive."

She could feel their eyes on her. She forced down an unsteady breath as the silence went on for a beat too long. Being picked apart as a living lab experiment was one of those recurring nightmares.

"We'll hold off on death for a bit, then," he said. "Let the chair do its work for a few hours. See if she decides to change her mind."

"It'll be cold day in Hell-" she snarled.

"I have no doubt that there is a special spot in Hell reserved just for creatures like you," he said, sounding almost cordial. "Whereas people like me, people that spend our lives ridding the world of demons like you? I'll be sitting at the side of my God, basking in eternal glory." He took a few steps closer, looming over her. "I can't wait for my judgment day, Miss Masters. Are you ready for yours?"

Then he walked away. The door snapped shut behind him. She was left alone with her oily rainbows and her two silent guards and the steadily increasing pain of the chair she was tied to.


	2. Chapter 2

_Thanks bibliophilea, nycorrall, Cartwheellou, Phantom J. Ryder, Kagome51, MsFrizzle, Team04Phantom, torchide, and Invader Johnny for their reviews!_

* * *

><p><strong>Memory<strong>  
>A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Cori<p>

_What's a memory worth?_

* * *

><p>"Mrs. Fenton, how nice to see you again."<p>

Maddie walked forwards, taking the hand of the man who had just stepped from the van. He was wearing white, crisp and impeccable. Thinning brown hair was slicked back against his skull, and brown eyes gazed at her from behind a pair of rounded glasses. He was tall and thin and had an ugly twist to his mouth. "Director Carson, you're rather early. Thank you for coming."

He smiled cordially, brushing at his clothes to remove a few nonexistent wrinkles, then started up the walk to the Fenton household. "As I'm the one that set up this meeting, I can hardly imagine needing to be thanked for coming. I should be the one thanking you for not running in terror." His voice was slimy and empty of emotion.

Maddie chuckled uneasily. Fentonworks and the government agency known as the Guys in White were on uncertain terms. Two years ago, they'd inexplicably pulled all their funding, leaving Maddie and Jack in a lurch. If it hadn't been for Vlad Masters stepping forwards, they would have lost their home. The government then blocked every move the Fentonworks made, denying every patent and license agreement and refusing to answer any phone calls – until two weeks ago when they'd received a call from the head director of the Guys in White requesting a meeting.

"Do come in," she said, pulling open the door and gesturing inside. "Sorry for the mess. We've been rather short on funding lately." Her tone was snide and prickled.

The inside of her home wasn't what it used to be. In the heyday of Fentonworks, high-tech gadgetry and ghost weaponry had tumbled from any available shelf space. Now, on a very strict budget that left no room for error, the room seemed practically barren. And everything had that used, old feel of having not been replaced in some time.

"It's… nice," Director Carson said, shuffling his thick manila folder from one hand to the other. "I hope you don't mind if I keep my shoes on. Policy."

Maddie bristled. She knew there was no such thing – her carpet was stained from years of children and experiments, but it wasn't dirty. "Of course not," she said, forcibly reminding herself to remain polite to the man that had sent her family to the brink of disaster. And now that they were starting to claw their way back to normal, he had shown back up in their lives. "Jack's not home yet, but he should be soon."

Another change to their usual lifestyle. Jack had been forced to take a job working at Axion labs. Fortunately, he'd managed to finagle a large enough paycheck that Maddie was able to stay home and continue working on their inventions and experiments.

Director Carson waved his hand dismissively. "I wanted to speak to you anyways, Mrs. Fenton. Where may we sit and discuss my proposal?"

"In the kitchen. This way." She gestured towards the kitchen door, then led the way across the carpet. Faced with the pristine and blank government director, her carpet did seem rather dirty. She bit back a sigh and forced herself to ignore it. If anyone should be ashamed of how her house looked, it should be the agency that broke all of their contracts and left Maddie and Jack holding the bill.

In the kitchen, she pointed out a seat at the table. The man hesitated before sitting, eyeing the chair and the table like it was covered in blood. She nearly rolled her eyes. "Would you like something to drink?"

"I'm fine," he said dismissively, setting his manila folder on the table. "If you'd have a seat, I'd like to get this over with as quickly as possible."

Maddie hesitated. She'd really wanted Jack here. He was the one that usually dealt with the contracts between Fentonworks and the government. A glance at the clock told her that Jack wouldn't be off work for another hour. It'd be close to ninety minutes before he was home. There was no way she could stall that long. She got herself a glass of water before sitting in one of the other chairs. "What is it you'd like to discuss?"

"A job."

Her fingers curled around the glass of water. "That didn't work out so well for us last time."

"There were many extenuating circumstances that forced us to cancel your contracts…" he paused, studying her, then nodded. "That I know where never fully explained to you."

"It makes me a little leery of your offer for a job," Maddie said, forcing a polite smile onto her face. "You understand." In fact, she'd vowed to never work for the government again. Totally private sector until the day she died.

"Of course." He opened his manila folder and took out the top piece of paper, sliding it across the table. It was a check. "Half payment will be upfront. You'll be issued a government credit card for all expenses, so that you're not liable for any bills if the contract should fall through. You'd only be out the other half your fee."

Maddie stared down at the check. Two hundred-fifty thousand dollars for half a job – and that was just the fee for Fentonworks. A half million dollars would put Fentonworks back on the map. They could restart the dreams they'd thought shattered. It was too good to be true. "What's the catch?"

Another paper slid across the table, covering up the six-figure check, this one a thick nondisclosure agreement. "You'd never be able to tell anyone about your findings, nor use anything you learn for future technology through Fentonworks without explicit direction from our department." There was a beat of silence, then, "And there's a bit of a bonus thrown in because I do feel bad about how my predecessor left you two years ago."

Maddie was unable to tell if he was sincere. But she picked up the agreement and paged through it. It was highly modified from the standard one she'd signed years ago. There were extremely harsh penalties for breaking the agreement – treason charges, life imprisonment, "The death penalty?" she said, startled, looking up.

He leaned forwards, resting his elbows on the table, then sat back again, obviously having rethought touching the tabletop with his white sleeves. "You'll also notice that you'll receive compensation for the remainder of your life for as long as this secret is kept."

She nodded, feeling like she was floating. A guaranteed hundred thousand dollars a year, just for keeping a secret to her grave. "I…"

"Obviously, I can't explain the situation until you sign that. And, if you sign that, you'll be part of our little secret and be working on the contract." He was quiet. "All I can offer you is the knowledge that it's for the public good. We're fighting the end of the world, Mrs. Fenton, and we need your help. We're not asking you to do anything amoral or inhumane or anything that would go against your ethical boundaries. If you run into something you're uncomfortable with, we can discuss how to handle it."

Her thoughts were spinning. For the last two years, they'd struggled so much. They'd had to depend on Vlad Masters more than Maddie was at all comfortable with. Her children were struggling, her family slowly collapsing. Her husband was dedicated to providing for his family and refused to say anything, but she knew Jack died a little on the inside every day he left for work in the morning, rather than getting to stay home and do the things he loved to do.

She could fix it. "How long does this job last?"

"Couple weeks. You can work from home, as long as you keep your husband out of the loop."

Already she was shaking her head. "No. I can't keep things from Jack." She pushed the contract away. "Not for a million dollars."

Director Carson studied her with his bland, brown eyes. Then he nodded. "We can create some sort of modified agreement that would allow you to speak to Jack about the main details of the experiment. But he would not be allowed to help, nor would he be privy to the actual data you would be using. I can agree to that stipulation, as long as Jack would also agree to sign a nondisclosure agreement."

Maddie licked her lips. Handing back the contract had brought that check back into view. They could pay back Vlad – although the man never once brought up repayment, Maddie was desperate to get out from his grasp – and Jack could quit his job. She'd never been money motivated. She didn't want to be money motivated.

But that was a lot of zeros. And it would solve a lot of problems.

"Do you have a pen?" she whispered before she could change her mind. When the man handed her a pen, she scribbled the note about the Jack being allowed in on the main details, then signed her name. She flipped through the document, initialing several times before closing the last page and resting her hand on the pile of pages. "So," she said, pushing the thick nondisclosure agreement back across the table, "what's this job?"

Director Carson paged through the agreement, studying it carefully, and reading the little note at the end before signing his own name. Folding the document up and putting it into an inside pocket of his jacket, the man pushed the remaining contents of his folder across the table. "This is Danielle Masters."

"Masters?"

"Legal daughter of one former Mayor of Amity Park and current billionaire tycoon," he agreed. His eyebrow twitched upwards. "Interesting?"

Maddie stared at the picture. The girl had black hair and blue eyes and a facial structure that reminded her vaguely of Danny, but she had a dark look to her expression that was all Vlad. "I didn't know he had a daughter."

"She was sixteen."

"Was?" Maddie caught the word, turning the picture to the next page. Another picture was there. This one of a ghost – white hair, brilliant red eyes, and a rather familiar outfit. Her eyebrows furrowed, confused.

"She died last week. There was an attack at the school she attended in California. Two others were killed."

Flipping to the next page, Maddie gazed down at lists of numbers and data. They seemed to be health reports. "I don't understand. I'm not a biologist, and I'm certainly not a criminologist-"

Director Carson leaned forwards, the shadows catching the corners of his smile. "You are unique situated to help us. Trust me on that." Then he gestured to the folder and said, "Would you mind?"

Maddie, still at a loss as to what sort of job the government wanted a ghost expert to do in the case of a murdered teenage girl, nodded and moved her hands out of the way.

The man took the two pictures, setting the side by side. "It's a rather convoluted story, and we're not entirely sure we have all the details correct." He pulled a small wallet-sized school picture out of his pocket – this one of a little girl with black hair sitting on a swing. "This is Suzie Crimmins. She disappeared six years ago from a town near Green Bay, Wisconsin and was never seen again."

Maddie nodded. "What-"

Director Carson held up a hand. "I said, it's a rather convoluted story. Patience. Approximately four months later, this girl," he tapped on the image of Vlad's daughter, "appears on the scene. Before this moment, Vlad had never claimed any offspring. He doesn't, in fact, claim this one as his for another than two years. She has zero paperwork to show who she is. No social security number. No birth records. Nothing." He took a breath. "Most oddly, Miss Master's fingerprints match…" he trailed off, tapping the small picture of Suzie.

"You're saying they're the same girl?" Maddie picked up the pictures, comparing them. Years had passed from one picture to the next, making comparing them hard. But there were several similarities that made Maddie feel like the man was telling the truth. It made her skin crawl to think that Vlad had taken this child away from her parents. Unless Vlad was really her father, and he'd just claimed her in some way.

"We're a government agency that focuses on the supernatural. Even if we had noticed the similarity years ago, it wouldn't have been something for our department to handle. And, of course, we wouldn't be coming to you."

Maddie dragged her eyes off the pictures. "Of course…"

"She popped up on our radar last May." The man tapped the third picture. "Because this is also her."

"This is a ghost," she said slowly.

"Mrs. Fenton." The man's tone of voice had shifted into something deeper, sounding like he was going to say something profound. "It is entirely possible for there to exist a creature in this world that straddles the line of creation. A being that is both human and ghost at the same time."

Maddie stared down at the pictures. "No," she said, shaking her head. "That's not-"

He pulled something out of his pocket. A small vial of blood. He set it down before her. Against the white paperwork, the little speckles of green ectoplasm floating in it were easily visible. "This is a sample of her blood."

"No." She didn't pick up the vial. "It's not possible."

"It took a long time for me to believe it too," he said, nodding sympathetically. "I've been studying these hybrids for two years. It took a lot of data and a lot of surveillance and, really, I still didn't believe it when I was face to face with her a few weeks ago. She turned right in front of me. That's when I really, finally, accepted that it could be true."

Maddie sat still, staring at the pictures and the blood and not really listening to what the man was saying. It wasn't possible for blood and ectoplasm to mix. They reacted with each other like cesium and water. Jack had been trying to come up with a way to mix ectoplasm and iron-based steel alloys for years, convinced that he could create a form of battery if he could figure it out. The ectoplasm should be reacting with the iron in the blood's hemoglobin. The vial should have exploded by now. The vial sitting in front of her simply wasn't possible.

And yet, there it sat.

"We believe that Mr. Masters created her in some sort of experiment… Mrs. Fenton? Are you okay?"

Very slowly, Maddie reached out and picked up the vial. "Is this real?" She swirled it. The blood had clotted somewhat, forming chunks. The greenish globs looked something similar – like clotted blood, only green and carrying a faint glow.

"Yes. That's real."

"This is…" she trailed off, then shook her head. Her mind was spinning with the possibilities. Jack's formulas about the potential energy-storage capabilities of an iron-ectoplasm battery were sound – a small AAA-size battery using ectoplasm-based technology could hold more potential energy than a car battery. With this, they could revolutionize the battery industry. Rewrite standards. And that was just one small idea. "This is years of research. This changes-"

"You can't use any of it," he interrupted.

Maddie looked up from the vial, jerked out of her thought process. She blinked, then looked down at the nondisclosure agreement she'd signed. "I…" She paused, closing her mouth, trying to think through how to say this. "You don't understand. There's billions of dollars to be made from-"

"You can't use any of it," he repeated. "I understand what it is. I understand what it means." He tapped the photo of the girl. "Despite all the potential good it could do, it also means this."

The girl stared up from the photo with dull blue eyes. "What do you mean?" Maddie picked up the picture of the ghost, looking back and forth between the two. The similarities were there.

"Imagine a world where there are creatures that could harness all the abilities of a ghost, but with a human mind behind it. Imagine the criminals that could rob banks by just walking through walls and carting off a country's worth of money. Imagine the wars we could have with armies full of soldiers that don't need weaponry. Imagine a world where a politician could possess you and force you to do what they want."

Maddie closed her eyes. Yes, she could believe that there was some sort of hybrid of a human and a ghost – the vial in front of her was proof that it could be possible. But to believe in the picture he was painting? "That's a dismal view of the world, Director," she said.

"We've caught seven of them so far."

"Seven?"

"Seven of the creatures. All of them had been corrupted by their abilities. Five of them were tied to strings of murders stretching across countries. All are responsible for millions of dollars missing from banks. All of them have landed people in the hospital after manipulating their minds past the breaking point."

Maddie shook her head. "I'm still not sure what you want me to do. I work with technology. If you wanted me to make you a trillion dollars with this discovery, I could get you on the right path in less a month. I'm not a biologist."

"You're the world's leading expert on ghost technology-"

"Which didn't matter to you two years ago when you broke all of our contracts and left us with the better part of a million dollars in debt," Maddie finished. "What's changed? And how does my expertise help you with this?"

Director Carson nodded slowly. "There aren't any ghost biology experts in the world. You're probably the closest we're going to come to someone who can make heads or tails of the information." He paused a long moment, then said, "You also know Vlad Masters."

Maddie's lips thinned. "He bribed you to give me this job?"

The man snorted. "No. He is out of town for the week, and I'd prefer it if he didn't know I was here at all." He leaned over the table and flipped through the paperwork until a page on the top was listing what looked like phone records. "We can tie Masters to four of the seven creatures we've caught. This last girl was easy, since he'd claimed her as his daughter. We think that Masters is creating them."

"And…?"

"And we want you to work with him. Partner with him. And find out if he is, how he's doing it, and how we can stop him."

"You want me to spy on the man that's been keeping my family afloat for the past two years?" Maddie crossed her arms over her chest. Despite what she thought about the man's sleazy personality, he had been helpful these past few years. "What about your amoral, unethical comment?"

He shoved the picture of Danielle Masters at her, losing his cool, calm exterior for the first time. "This girl possessed a young man and forced him to be her boyfriend. When he fought back, she landed him in a mental institution as little more than a vegetable. She critically injured seven of my men when they tried to stop her, and one of them later died. She stole a little over eight million dollars from banks across California. She manipulated local authorities into letting her do what she wanted, when she wanted. And even if you don't want to blame her for it – she was contaminated by all that ectoplasm, it had to have been messing with her head – you have to feel for her. She died, slowly and painfully. She melted, Mrs. Fenton. You could hear her screams from the other side of the building. She was twelve when he took her."

Maddie swallowed, getting up from her chair and walking over to the sink to get some more water. She was most of the way there before she realized her glass was still full, so she just stood at the sink and stared out the window. It was a nice day out – sunny and warm spring day – but she saw none of it. Her thoughts whirled in a horrible storm in her mind.

"Yes. I'm asking you to spy on a family friend. But how is this okay? How can you not help us put a stop to this?" She could hear him let out a slow breath, returning to his normal, calm tone. "I'm not asking you to stop him. I'm not asking you to turn over any of his private information. I just want you to partner with him, work with him, and find out if our suspicions are true. And, if they are, to help us stop them."

She turned around to face him. Even with all that Vlad had pulled over the years, he would… he couldn't… "Vlad wouldn't-"

"I'm not saying he knows his creations are out there, destroying things and melting into painful deaths. But they are. And if he's really responsible for them…" Director Carson stood up from his chair, a head taller than her. "Please, Mrs. Fenton. At the very least, you'd be able to clear his name. Think of it as a payback for all the good he's done for you the past few years. And, as an added bonus, you get a half-million dollars."

Maddie gazed down into her water. Little ripples were causing the surface to move chaotically, breaking her reflection into a million little pieces. "Vlad's a family friend. I'm not going to break that trust."

"And…?"

"But I'll do it." She felt her moral center tip crazily as the words tumbled from her mouth. So much for not being money motivated. For a half million dollars, she was going to spy on her husband's best friend, and the man that had allowed their family to stay in place and relatively intact.

Director Carson's face broke into a smile. "Perfect. I'll call him and set up a meeting for the two of you. We have a project we were going to partner with Masters on – I'll have him bring in you as a partner. It's something you've worked on before, so it shouldn't be too much trouble."

"Of course," Maddie said softly.

"I'll see myself out then? I'll drop a contract off for Jack this evening – you're not allowed to say anything to him until he signs, remember."

Maddie didn't answer. By the time she looked up from her water, the house was quiet and empty. She took a few steps forwards and stared down at the manila envelope full of information on these strange hybrid ghosts.

Flipping through the pages, she ended on a stack of photographs. A bunch of candid shots – the individuals in the images were all doing things and didn't appear to realize they were being photographed. All of them had black hair and blue eyes and that dark, twisted look to their face that reminded her so much of Vlad. Six boys. Plus the girl. Seven of them.

How many more could there be?


	3. Chapter 3

_Thanks GeekyZelda, MsFrizzle, Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, bibliophilea, DB-KT, EnderDragon21, nycorrall, IvyVine6, Lilith Jae, and Invader Johnny for their reviews!_

* * *

><p><strong>Memory<strong>  
>A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Cori<p>

_What's a memory worth?_

* * *

><p>Danny Fenton, at the ripe old age of twenty, hadn't accomplished much in life. He couldn't hold down a steady job. He couldn't keep a steady girlfriend. He was barely managing to stay in college, and he was still living at his parents' house. He was, as he'd so often been called in high school, a loser.<p>

All his dreams of a wonderful future had – somewhere along the way – gone crashing out the window and flown away. Cold reality had slowly settled in. Someone who disappeared randomly and for no explicable reason didn't fit into society. And, as time had gone by, even he admitted that he was getting a little less human and a little more ghost. He'd gotten to the point where, most days, he didn't even really mind the solitude.

He lay on the roof of Fentonworks, watching the sunset. It had been warm all day, but now that the sun was going down, it was rapidly cooling off. It would a cold spring morning tomorrow.

Oranges and reds and purples and blues stained the world a glorious rainbow of colors. As the sun sank below the horizon and the colors faded into muted shadows, Danny sighed. He'd spent hundreds of nights sitting up here with his friends. And now…

He couldn't blame them. He wouldn't blame them. They had lives. They had to go live them. Being trapped in Amity Park and going to the local community college simply wasn't an option for the dreams his friends had. Danny had tried to leave too, right after he'd graduated. He'd been accepted to the state university in the astronomy field he'd been interested in.

Only everything had fallen apart. In one fateful week, his parents had nearly lost everything. Ghosts nearly took over the town in the resulting aftermath. Not to mention the fact that Vlad had managed to tie a metaphorical rope so tightly around Danny's neck that there was little chance of escape.

Amity Park was his past, his present, and – for the next who knew how long – his future. With a depressing life as a busboy hanging over his head, he didn't even really try to pass his classes at the local college anymore.

He rolled over onto his stomach and stared over the edge. A white van was pulling away from the house. He didn't know what the government lackey wanted with his parents, and he didn't really want to know. He'd made it his life's ambition to keep at least four walls between him and the nearest government agent at all times.

The phone in his pocket vibrated. Assuming it was his parents, calling him to come home for supper, Danny answered it with a, "Yeah?"

"That is no way to speak to me, Little Badger."

Danny sat up. "What do you want?"

Vlad Masters chuckled. "Right to the point, huh? Don't want to chat?"

"Not with you. I'm expecting a phone call," Danny lied. "So speak or hang up."

"From your latest girlfriend?" Vlad sneered, his voice dripping with disdain. "Oh, that's right, she dumped you." Danny tensed, ready to hang up the phone, when Vlad laughed. "Get over it, Daniel. This is the life you chose. I could have stripped your powers away years ago, and you know it."

"What do you want?" Danny asked again, his fingers curling into fists. Even the sound of Vlad's voice made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Despite the consequences, one more crack at his life and Danny would disintegrate his phone.

"Your mother had a visit from the Director of the Guys in White today."

Danny's fist slowly unclenched. "I know, but how do you? Aren't you in China or something?"

"Do you know what it was about?" Vlad sounded distracted, like he really didn't care. But Danny wasn't fooled – Vlad wouldn't be calling and stretching the bounds of their 'agreement' about something he thought was trivial.

"No. I was in class." Danny turned to see if he could still see the white van. Now he was curious about the meeting. If Vlad wanted to know… then Danny wanted to know.

"I want you to find out and tell me."

Danny pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at the screen in disbelief. Vlad's contact picture was an image of a fire demon torturing innocent children he'd found on the internet some months earlier. "You know my parents sign all sorts of things for the government. Nondisclosure stuff. They can't tell me, and you know that."

"I'm not asking you to ask them. I'm telling you to find out."

Danny scowled at the phone. "I don't-"

"You do, Little Badger," Vlad said, his voice cold as ice. "Sooner or later you need to get over this childish hang up of yours and actually use your abilities to accomplish something."

The line went dead before Danny could get control of his temper enough to retort. He wasn't going to use his powers against his parents of all people. And especially not because Vlad 'Self Proclaimed God of Amity Park' Masters told him to. Danny scowled at his phone, then stuffed it into his pockets and tried to go back to enjoying the view. It was, however, officially ruined.

With a sigh, he phased himself intangible and fell through the ceiling. He rolled in mid-drop to land in a crouch in the empty hulk of what used to be the Ops Center. His shoes clunked loudly on the floor. He stood up, stretched a few kinks out of his back, and then sauntered down the steps and into the living room.

His parents were in the kitchen – he could just see them through the half-closed door – hovering over something on the table. Danny tapped his toe on the ground a few times, deciding, then scowled and crossed his arms. It would be really easy to just turn invisible and walk in there and look at what was on the table.

But he was serious about not using his powers against his parents. Against anyone but ghosts. Not after what happened two years ago. And this, at least in his mind, constituted as 'using his parents against his parents'.

So he sulked back over to the front door, opened it, and then slammed it closed. "Mom! Dad! I'm home!" he yelled.

"Hang on, Sweetie!" his mother called. He could see her moving around in the kitchen, cleaning up the mess on the table. A smile cracked at the corner of his lips – he was right. They'd been looking at something he wasn't supposed to know about. His mother pushed the door open, still sorting through a manila folder in her hands. "You have great timing – supper's almost done. How was your day?"

"Pretty good," he answered, walking past her and snagging a glass for some milk. It had been a nice day – with Vlad out of town, the number of ghosts that wanted to make an impression dropped to nearly zero. He hadn't caught a wisp of ectoplasm all day. "Kinda boring, honestly."

His mother hummed. "Didn't you have that test today?"

Danny nodded, taking a gulp of his milk and allowing his gaze to travel to his father. The man looked absolutely blank, blinking and staring at the wall. "It seemed easy, so I think I did well on it. What was with the government van outside?"

"They offered us a contract for a job."

"Which you guys didn't take…?" Danny said. When his mother didn't answer right away, Danny groaned. "After last time, Mom? You know you can't trust the Asses in White."

"It's a good deal, Danny. And they paid enough up-front that our losses would be easily covered if they pull out again." Maddie sighed and set the folder down on the counter, walking over and grabbing some plates to set the table for supper. "Trust me. I looked over the contract before I signed it."

Danny sighed. "Yeah, I just don't trust them." His eyes drifted back over to his father. The man was sitting there, still staring at the wall. "What broke Dad's brain today?"

"The project the government has us working on. It's… hard to wrap your brain around. He'll knock himself out of it when I put food in front of him." She smiled at him. "We're having lasagna. Should be done in a few minutes."

Danny hummed. "What's this project about, anyways?" He grabbed a few forks and knives and set them on the table.

"It's top secret, Danny. I can't tell you."

"One of those, 'I'd tell you but I'd have to kill you' things?" Danny joked, dropping into his seat. When there was no reply, Danny looked up at his mother with narrowed eyes. "Mom?"

"It's… really top secret," she said. "Relax. It'll be fine."

Danny refused to let it drop. "No. The other contracts just had them pull funding if something went wrong, and see where that left you guys? Now they actually can…" he trailed off, refusing to believe that his parents had signed a contract that had anything near those sorts of terms. He wasn't even sure he was willing to accept that a contract like that could even exist. Then again, this was the worst of the government agencies; he wasn't sure he would put anything past them. But kill his parents for talking about it? That was probably an exaggeration.

His mother pulled the lasagna from the oven and set it on the table. She smiled at him and ruffled his hair. "It's fine, Danny. I'm touched that you care so much, but you focus on college."

Danny crossed his arms and sank down in his chair. He didn't care that it was slightly childish behavior. His mother had just ruffled his hair. His gaze drifted over to his father, who still hadn't moved. "Is he even alive?"

Maddie scooped some lasagna out of the dish and set it on Jack's plate. The larger man suddenly blinked and looked down at the table. "Oh. Supper," he rumbled, grabbing his fork. "Thanks, Mads."

His mother got herself some lasagna then passed the scoop to him. He sighed and grabbed it, dishing himself out some supper. "Can you tell me anything about it?" When his mother hesitated, Danny went for a pleading look. "Come on, you guys signed some sort of iron-clad contract. I'm going to die of curiosity if you don't just give me something."

"It'll change the world," Jack said around his mouthful of lasagna. "Groundbreaking. Incredible."

"If anyone's ever allowed to tell the world," Maddie added.

His father grinned. "They can't hide something like this forever. The idea that there is-"

"Jack," Maddie said sharply.

The man scowled and took another bite of his lasagna. "Fine," he muttered.

"I'm sorry, Sweetie, but we're really not allowed to tell you more than that."

Danny, who had followed the back-and-forth like someone watching a ping-pong tournament, nodded. "Yeah. I just don't like those guys," he muttered.

His father agreed rather vehemently, then got himself off on a tangent about something that happened at Axion labs. Danny listened with half an ear, nodding occasionally, but his thoughts were stuck on that folder. It was sitting casually on the counter. It sounded like his parents had signed some sort of very strong nondisclosure agreement – that had both his curiosity and his sense of doom tingling. Add that to a phone call from Vlad…

Caught between a rock and a hard place. Not knowing what was in that file could make his life – and potentially his family's lives, once Vlad got back from China and started to delve into it himself – very difficult. It was better to have information than to fly blind. But getting hold of that information would require the use of his powers – something he had promised never to do. And if anyone ever found out that Danny had snooped and got into his parent's top secret file, he had no idea what sort of doom would rain down on his family.

As he helped clean the dishes and store the remaining lasagna in the fridge, Danny sighed and came to a decision. He'd have to take a look in the file. And he couldn't wait for the cover of night – there was no telling where his parents would hide the file, or when they'd go to bed. He might have to search hours and hours to find it.

Besides, they hadn't shot at Phantom in almost two years.

"I've got a paper to write," he said, putting the last dish away. "Mind if I vanish from family together time and get some work on it?"

His mother smiled at him and pulled him into a hug. "Of course not, Sweetie. I'm glad you're working so hard."

Danny hugged her back, then slunk from the kitchen. "Yeah," he muttered. He wasn't looking forwards to them seeing his report card for this semester's classes. He was pretty sure he was scraping by with C's in most courses – but his math course was a dismal failure this year. Too many missed classes.

He made it back to his room and closed the door solidly behind him before relaxing his grip on his humanity. Coldness flooded around him, energy crackling and sparkling. When he opened his eyes, the shadows were longer, but not nearly as dark.

Danny Phantom had accomplished a lot in the few years of his existence. He was solidly in the 'good guy' camp of most of the people in town. After the fiasco two years ago, even his parents had stopped shooting at him. 'Doing more good than harm,' was his mother's excuse for letting him be. His father had nodded and agreed, and was now intent on trying to catch him to ask a million questions.

He wondered what side they'd be on if they caught him rifling through their top secret files. Invisible, he drifted down the steps and through the door. His mother was wiping down the counter, his father sitting at the kitchen table and back to staring at the wall. Letting his feet touch the ground, Phantom walked over to the counter and picked up the file. A tiny charge of energy made the file invisible to everyone but him.

With a quick glance at his parents to make sure they were still looking the other way, and squashing down on his moral compass telling him this was the wrong thing to be doing, Danny flipped open the file. He stood still, staring at the pictures. Goosebumps raced up his arms and crawled across his spine. "Oh my God," he whispered, absolutely stunned. "Danielle."

"Hey!"

Phantom looked up. Both his parents were staring in his direction, Maddie with her hand on the small ectoweapon on her belt. It wasn't drawn yet. In his shock, he'd lost hold of his invisibility.

"That's not for you," Maddie said, sounding authoritative. "Put it down."

"Do you know what this is?" Phantom asked her. He closed the file, not knowing what to think. "Do you…" he trailed off at the look in her eye. She did know. She understood what these were pictures of.

Human-ghost hybrids. The government was having her research human-ghost hybrids.

And worse yet, every single one of those pictures were Vlad's creepy clone-things. All of them led straight to a place Danny did not want to go.

"You know what they are too," Maddie said. She walked a few steps forwards, then tugged the file from his limp fingers. "Hybrids."

Phantom shook his head, back and forth – not a negative response to her statement, but more an expression of disbelief. "You don't want to research this."

"I-"

"This will get you killed," he said sharply. "You can't research this."

Maddie stared at him. She was far too close to him for comfort – within arms reach. He was a ghost standing in her kitchen. Her multiple black belts notwithstanding, she was also armed to the teeth. "It's complicated," she said.

"Yeah, it is." He took a step backwards. "Don't do this. You don't understand what you're getting into."

"I don't have a lot of choice," she said. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm not actually allowed to research the hybrids themselves." Phantom felt a bit of a knot in his shoulders undo itself. "I'm just helping determine where they came from."

"No!" The word was out of his mouth before he could stop it. Surprise, fear, and frustration mingled within the word. He took another step backwards, modulating his tone to something more polite. "Please don't."

Maddie's eyes narrowed and Phantom knew he'd run through what little patience the woman had for a somewhat friendly ghost standing in her kitchen. "That's the best part about me being human and you being a ghost. I don't have to listen to you."

I could make you. The words floated around in his head, but Phantom snuffed them out with a fierce vengeance. Sneaking around his parents' top secret files as a ghost was far enough. Possession was so far out of the question, it wasn't even an answer anymore. "I'm just asking," he said. "You don't understand what you're getting into. I do. You don't want to get into it. It could kill you."

"I know what I'm doing," she said.

"I thought I knew what I was doing too," he said, very softly. "Look where I am." His eyes flicked over to Jack. The man was standing next to the kitchen table, his arms almost deceptively loose by his sides. "Keep her safe."

When Jack narrowed his eyes and nodded, Phantom vanished, racing upwards through the roof and towards the moon. The wind burned at his eyes and whipped his hair around into a furious mess. He didn't know what to think about first.

His parents knew about human-ghost hybrids.

His parents had pictures of Danielle and Vlad's other 'clones'.

Which likely meant his parents knew something about Vlad. They were researching how those hybrid 'clones' had come to be. Probably not Vlad's status as a hybrid, but definitely his amoral research techniques.

And since the government was the one who had given his parents the file, it meant the government knew about hybrids. And Danielle. And the other 'clones'. And Vlad.

And him?

His flight faltered for a moment. He came to a stop, hanging in midair and looking around. The last of the sunlight was nothing but a dark purple streak on the horizon. Stars lit the sky overhead, and a huge nearly full moon hung heavy in the sky.

Danny screamed his frustration into the sky, little blasts of energy flying in every direction. They fizzled out long before they came anywhere close to the ground. After a minute, panting, he hung in the sky, feeling drained of energy.

What was he going to do?

He knew he would have to tread very carefully. Vlad was a dangerous and uncertain piece in the game. The man had a lot of ties to the government – saying the wrong thing at the wrong time could get everyone is trouble. And if the government was really sending his parents into Vlad's nest to figure out where the hybrids were coming from…

Danny sagged in the air, suddenly feeling very tired. This was going to be a very long night, trying to decide what to do and who to tell what. He had a feeling his secret – and quite possibly what was left of his future – were at stake.


	4. Chapter 4

_Thanks to nycorrall, MsFrizzle, ZoneRobotnik, Invader Johnny, bibliophilea, and IvyVine6 for their reviews!_

* * *

><p><strong>Memory<strong>  
>A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Cori<p>

_What's a memory worth?_

* * *

><p>After her son had failed out of his college and tunneled back into his bedroom, Maddie made a conscious decision to allow Danny to be completely independent. He was failing rather miserably… but she wanted him to at least try to learn from his mistakes. It was his life to lead – or to be allowed to drag him around by his ears. It was really his choice.<p>

Which was why, even though his first class of the day started in fifteen minutes and he still wasn't down for breakfast, she just continued to sit at the kitchen table, sipping her coffee. She was staring at the stairs, however. Danny was worrying her more often than not, lately. His grades were steadily dropping. The spark of life in his eyes was dimming. He was chasing away girlfriends – any friends, really – seemingly left and right. What time he spent at home was usually done with a quiet frown on his face.

Something had happened when he went off to college that had destroyed his spirit, that much she knew. But Danny refused to talk about it. He refused to even mention the topic of conversation and pressuring him about it drove him further away. All she could do was wait. Sit back and allow him to come to grips with… whatever it was… and eventually allow her to help. In the mean time, though, it felt like Danny's life had been put on hold.

When the clock chirped, signaling the fact that it was nine o'clock, Maddie sighed. It was far from the first class Danny had missed – despite new alarm clocks and many suggestions on how to get organized. She looked down at the remains of her coffee. What little was left was cold; not worth drinking.

With a sigh, she set her cup away and pulled out the file Director Carson had dropped off the previous afternoon. It was likely just her imagination, but she thought she could still feel the tingle of where Phantom's fingers had grasped the thin cardboard file.

Phantom. That strange, enigmatic phantasm. And he'd broken into her kitchen to look through a top secret file and warn her away from researching the topic. 'It could get you killed,' he'd said. Phantom had never looked so serious… or more scared. And when she'd mentioned where the hybrids came from, he'd looked terrified. Maddie was of the firm belief that ghosts were little more than imprints of people - that their emotions were echoes and memories, rather than real - but the quiet, pleading, 'please don't,' had torn at her heart in a way that made her stop and think.

"Maybe I shouldn't do this," she muttered to herself, tapping the file against the table in a rat-a-tat pattern.

She'd had her doubts, and Jack's comments when she'd explained it to him had magnified them. Phantom's comments had solidified those doubts into a solid mass that dangled in the back of her mind. It was a nagging, heavy weight pulling on her brain.

Maddie was a scientist. She was a professional. She readily admitted there were things that shouldn't be studied, things that were better left under lock and key. Maybe this was one of them. The government with its top secret classification and horribly strict nondisclosure agreement certainly seemed to agree with the thought.

"Morning," came a sleepy voice.

Maddie set the file down and smiled. "Morning Jack. Decided to get up in time to for work?" she teased. It had taken two weeks worth of being late to work for Jack's body to get into the rhythm of actually holding down a regular job.

"Meh," he grumbled, grabbing a cup of coffee and dropping heavily into a chair. He sipped at it, closing his eyes. He was still in his pajamas – red, footed pajamas with little snowmen dancing across the fabric. Jazz had gotten them for him as a gag gift last Christmas. She likely didn't realize they had become his favorite. "Still going to do that?" he asked, eying the folder.

"I don't know," Maddie admitted, picking up her cup and walking it over to the sink. "It's really good money-"

Jack sent her an annoyed look. "The money's not a problem, Mads. We're fine." He slurped another mouthful of coffee. "And Vladdie's offered to help out, if we need him."

Maddie kept back the wince – but just barely. She hadn't mentioned Vlad's involvement when she'd outlined the details to Jack last night. Vlad was one of Jack's oldest (and few) friends. He wouldn't take well to the idea of spying on him. "It's also really interesting. Ghost-human hybrids…"

"Shame you couldn't keep that blood sample," Jack said. "If we could figure out how they stopped the iron-ectoplasm reaction…" He trailed off, obviously caught on some tangent. Then he shook himself and focused on her. "Researching something the government won't even let you mention to anyone else without the threat of treason, though? That doesn't sound very safe, Mads. We have lots to do without going that far."

"I know." Jack wasn't saying anything Maddie hadn't already heard the previous evening. She dropped back into her chair and flipped open the file, staring down at the pictures. "I'm still deciding."

"You'll make the right choice."

Maddie looked up at Jack. The man was smiling at her, his eyes twinkling with some sort of internal delight.

"You always do."

She rolled her eyes at the overly romantic comment, but smiled at it.

Jack shrugged a shoulder and sipped more of his coffee. "That's why I married you. I let you make all the decisions because you always make the right ones."

"Are you going to get dressed before work, or are you going in your pajama's today?" she teased, glancing pointedly at the clock. Jack needed to clock in by 9:30, and it was a good fifteen minute drive – even by Jack's standards of safe driving.

Her husband's good mood evaporated like a balloon being popped with a pin. "I don't mind working, I really don't," he complained, draining the last of his coffee and lumbering to his feet. "It's the stupid hours they make you work."

Maddie took the cup from him and shooed him out of the kitchen and up towards the bedroom to change. "Could be worse," she commented. "There are a lot of people who need to be at work by eight."

Jack groaned in dismay at the thought, then vanished up the stairs.

With a chuckle, Maddie hesitated, then followed him up. Jack disappeared through their bedroom door, but Maddie hesitated outside her son's room. Really, she should let him sleep. It was his life.

But she was his mother. She raised a hand and knocked softly. "Danny?"

There was a mumbled response from inside, then the sound of a body falling out of bed and crashing into something that had been piled up. Several curses followed before a disheveled and exhausted-looking young man pulled open the door. "What?" His eyes were red, like he'd been crying.

"You're late for class again," she said, leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb.

A glance at his watch accompanied another quiet curse, along with a somewhat defeated look that flashed through his eyes. "Sorry," he said.

"It's not my life you're screwing up, kiddo," she said gently. "You don't need to apologize to me."

"Yeah," he muttered. "I know."

"I got breakfast going. Come downstairs and snag yourself something before you head you. Do try to make it to your next class."

"Yup." Danny yawned and pulled the door closed behind him.

Maddie shook her head with a sigh and headed back downstairs, grabbing the manila folder and then heading down to her office space in the basement. It was really just a folding table set up in an uncluttered corner of the basement, but it was a space that was decidedly hers. The rest of the Fenton clan knew the consequences of messing with her unique – but very practical – organizational system.

Fluorescent lights buzzed to life when she flipped the switch. Tables cluttered with junk filled the basement lab. Old, teetering, metal shelves lined the walls. And over on the far wall was the hole where the Fenton Ghost Portal used to sit. It had been their greatest achievement. Officially decommissioned a few years ago, Jack had all sorts of dreams and plans of creating the Portal 2.0. He'd even started work on it. But stricter regulations after what had happened two years ago made it virtually impossible to move even a step past imagination.

She sighed and headed towards her desk chair. Fentonworks was still a business, and it was still in business – even if it wasn't doing very well – and she had several contracted items to complete-

A glow made her pause mid-step. A ghost was slouched against her desk, picking at his white gloves and looking bored. She reached for one of the small ectoweapons she had tucked in her belt. With the Portal gone, ghosts rarely bothered them – the thing had been a sort of magnet for the dead – but she had never lost the habit of carrying a weapon with her.

This was the second time in two days Phantom had invaded their personal space. The ghost generally took great pains to avoid them, even after they'd made it clear that they were going to stop actively hunting him. And, after months and months of not seeing a single hair of him, his sudden reappearance was odd.

"Phantom," Maddie greeted.

His flinch was almost comical. The quick movement almost knocked over a pile of paper and the young ghost had to twirl around to catch the stack before it tumbled to the floor and made a huge mess. "Sorry," the ghost muttered, looking annoyed and embarrassed as he glanced up at her. "You walk really softly."

Maddie let a small smile quirk the corners of her mouth. "Ghost hunter," she said. "Job perk."

"Right," Phantom said. His green eyes swirled with energy as they drifted down to focus on the manila envelope. "I…" he trailed off.

"If you're going to give me more reasons to not follow through with this research, you can save your breath," Maddie said, forcing herself to let her hand stay by her side as she brushed past the ghost and set the folder on her desk. "I've already made my mind up." She hadn't, not really, not in any way that she couldn't back out of, but the ghost didn't need to know that.

"I figured," he said. He rubbed at the back of his neck with a hand and looked around the lab. His eyes fixated on where the Portal used to be. Then he looked back at her, intently. "What'd you choose?"

Maddie straightened a few things on her desk, purposefully trying to appear busy and not threatened by the ghost. The phantasm had grown over the years he'd been haunting Amity Park. He was a full head taller than her now, although he was still ripcord thin. Lean and lanky but deceptively powerful. Leaning against a table and running a hand through his hair, he didn't seem to be a dangerous ghost. "What does it matter to you?" she asked, honestly curious.

"It's complicated," he said after a long moment. "Plans, and stuff."

She glanced at him. "Plans to prevent me from going anywhere?"

He gave a half-shrug. "No. I can't stop you from doing anything." Folding his legs up, he settled into the air, rested his elbows on his knees, then his chin on balled-up fists. "Can't use my powers against a human. And you're human."

Maddie hummed in agreement, if not understanding. She'd heard the ghost say that before – not willing to use his powers against humans – but she never really understood why it was. The closest they'd come was Jack's theory that it was somehow a new obsession, but there were a lot of holes in that theory. "So plans for what, then?"

"Figuring out how to keep you alive."

Startled by the frank answer, Maddie started down at the folder full of information on the hybrids. "You really believe this information is that dangerous."

"It's not a belief," Phantom said. "It's a fact. People die when they get into the information you're looking at. The ones that don't die disappear and are never seen again. The few that stick around… most of them are so trapped under blackmail and threats that they wish they could disappear."

Maddie nodded slowly. She opened up the file and picked up some of the pictures. "These were just kids, Phantom."

His eyes flickered to the pictures, then up to her. He nodded.

"The government wants to put a stop to this-"

Phantom snorted loudly, his face a picture of disbelief.

Maddie hesitated. "What?"

"The government doesn't want to stop this," Phantom corrected. "They want to control this." He dropped out of the air, hitting the ground in a crouch, and walked over to take the pictures. He rifled through them. "Think of the power you'd have if you could create beings like this. Ghost abilities controlled by a human mind." He looked up at her, eyes swirling with hidden thoughts. "You could take over the world. Assassinate or simply possess anyone and everyone that got in your way."

"Director Carlson seemed to want to stop it," Maddie said.

"Director Carson," Phantom parroted, "is the fourth director of the idiots in White in less than six years. Trust me – as soon as his superiors get wind of the ability to do this," he waved the pictures, "he'll be out and someone more in tune with their desires will take over." He ran a finger over the face of the girl.

"I want to stop this."

Phantom didn't look up from the photographs. "It's stopped already."

"It's…" Maddie trailed off, startled by that quiet assertion. "Really?"

The ghost nodded, flipping idly through the images. "I made him stop doing this years ago."

"You've known what was going on for that long?"

He hesitated, looked around, then nodded. "And I know you don't want to be a part of it."

"Someone took innocent children and turned them into criminals. They're killing people. Stealing millions of dollars-"

"It's not their fault," Phantom interrupted, angrily. "They're brainwashed."

Maddie stepped towards him, took the pictures. The girl, Vlad's daughter, was the top picture. The girl was ordering take away from a Chinese place, a grin on her face and some friends chatting with her. "That's why I need to help."

After a very long moment of silence, Phantom nodded. "And why I'm not going to stop you." Then he shook his head. "But you don't want to do this. You don't want to be a part of this."

"Why not?"

"Sticky slippery spider webs," Phantom said. "You get pulled in, wrapped up in a tight cocoon, and there's no escape." He stared at her. "This isn't something you're ever going to come out of, not once you go in. It's Hotel California."

Maddie narrowed her eyes slightly, trying to catch the odd reference.

"_Relax, said the night man, we are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like but you can never leave_." Phantom hummed a few bars from the song. "Eagles, I think." He sighed. "Just… you can't unlearn this stuff, not once you get into it, and you're going to have to live with that knowledge of the rest of your life."

She let out a slow breath. "I get that," she said.

A smile crooked the corner of Phantom's mouth.

Maddie sat down in her chair, turning her back on the ghost, spreading out the files. "I can't share this with anybody…" she trailed off and shrugged.

"Good thing I don't legally count as an 'anybody'," Phantom said. She could feel the cold as he walked closer to stand behind her. "Gotta love loopholes."

"Since you're here," Maddie said, picking out a few of the sheets she had read the previous evening, "and you obviously know a lot about this subject, it'd be nice to get some information."

"That's kinda why I'm here," Phantom admitted. She could feel him resting his elbows on the back of her chair, peering over her shoulder. It was uncomfortable to have a ghost that close to the back of her neck. Almost if he could feel her tense, he retreated a few feet. "I'll tell you what I can."

Maddie hesitated when she heard someone moving around upstairs. "Jack," she said, looking over her shoulder up the stairs. "I'm going to…" She trailed off when she realized she was talking to herself. A glance at the ghost monitor showed no active ectoplasm in the lab. The ghost had vanished. "Yeah, exactly," she muttered.

Getting up from her seat, Maddie headed upstairs. Jack was getting his shoes on, grabbing his coat. "Gotta run, Mads," he said.

"Have a great day at work," Maddie said, giving him a hug. "Don't work too hard."

Jack winked and grinned. "Never do, Sweetheart." He returned the hug, along with a kiss. "Can't be late."

Danny chose that moment to scramble down the stairs, still pulling on his shoes. He was somehow managing a one-legged half-run down the stairs without falling. "Hey Mom, Dad. I'm late. See you later! Love you!" He brushed past them like a whirlwind, vanishing out the door without another word.

"He gets that from you," Maddie said blandly, handing Jack his keys.

"Yes, he does," Jack agreed with a laugh, then followed his son out the door and left Maddie alone in the silence of her home. She stood there for a few minutes, watching Jack get into the car and pull away, then turned and headed back to the basement. By the time she gave up going over the paperwork, it was lunch and Phantom still hadn't come back.

* * *

><p>Jack Fenton lied to his wife when he said he didn't mind working. He hated working. It was a despicable thorn in his side that he couldn't wait to get rid of. He'd even spent some of his break time programming an app on his computer that displayed the time until retirement – down to the second. It had been a bad plan. Now he spent a good portion of his day glowering at the slow count down and trying to come up with a time-altering device to make time tick by faster.<p>

The only possible upside to having a job – other than the paycheck that kept his family fed and under a somewhat solid roof – was that he'd gotten a rather cushy job in the paranormal sciences division at Axion Labs. It wasn't all that different from what he'd been doing for Fentonworks. Design, build, test, and modify next generation technology using paranormal energy. The only difference was that nothing had the Fentonworks logo on it. Instead, it had the rather bland and stupid-looking Axion Labs logo.

Jack was quickly growing to hate that logo. He'd redesigned it eleven times. Each time the new redesign had been rejected. He settled down at his desk for yet another boring day of trying to design better ectoplasmic weapons and pulled over design sketch number twelve. Twelfth time had to be the charm… right?

"Fenton!"

Jack groaned, closing his eyes. If there was anything worse than the Axion Labs logo, it was his partner. Damon Gray. The man wasn't a scientist. He had a double major in business management and biology. A bachelor's degree in biology, put into an applied technology position. Biology wasn't even a real science – it was more like fancy psychology with some science-related words. The man had spent a number of years working as a night watchman before being moved back up to a desk job, and dumped right into the lap of Axion's newest employee.

Really, Jack knew he should give the man a break. Damon had lost his wife years ago and his daughter not all that long ago. The man was trying to drown himself in his work – probably literally – and it wasn't Damon's fault Axion Labs had hired him for something he was unqualified for and, honestly, really bad at. Jack knew he should cut the man some slack, but Damon's annoying tendency to do exactly what he was told drove Jack insane, and there were only so many days a week Jack could listen to it.

"Got a memo, here," Damon Gray said, stalking up behind him and holding out a small piece of paper. Across the top of the note, Jack could see the word 'Memo' in red ink. "Straight from the boss-man."

Jack hated the man even worse when he tried to use lingo that he was several decades too old for.

"It says we need to get the patents filed for the Mark X2, stat. So we need to get on that." Damon swirled his finger in a little circle.

Overall in his life, Jack figured himself a happy-go-lucky sort of fellow. He rarely found things in his life to hate, and – when he did – tended to let go of the grudge fast. But this work thing was bringing out the worst in him. He breathed in, then breathed out and tried to let it go, setting a smile on his face. "You go get that battery cell finished, then," Jack said, sounding pleasant, "and I'll get more of the circuitry figured out over here."

"On it," Damon said, heading over to the next cubicle and vanishing.

Jack rubbed at his temples, then pulled out the bin for the Mark X2 weapon. It was something along the lines of a grenade launcher. It was supposed to lob balls of ectoplasma. While that X1 Jack had been handed to modify had looked awesome, it hadn't worked. In fact, the original prototype had exploded, landing two people in the hospital. The circuit panel was still a mess. Form over function, the original designer had obviously chosen. Jack had spent the better part of a week just tracing circuit patterns. Now he was actively trying to rewire the device into something that wouldn't short-circuit within seconds of being turned on.

He figured there were at least three more weeks of work to get this thing into a working form. And that was assuming the computer program was somewhere near usable condition. Three weeks just to modify an ectoplasmic grenade launcher. Jack scowled at it. If he was allowed to scrap the thing and start over, he'd be done in two days. Three, tops, if he burnt his hand again and had to do the whole thing one handed.

But he was still a low man on the totem pole. His job was not to create, as he had been informed several times. It was to fix, modify, and make other people's tech work better. There was now even a sign hanging above his computer to remind him of that fact. And so he would sit here, spending a month – or more – fixing up something he could have built in a few days.

He hated working.

Ten minutes of snapping off wires and moving them around had Jack's patience nearly worn through. He got out of his chair and slunk towards the employee staff room, hoping for a glass of water or that someone had brought in donuts. In TV shows, people always brought in donuts to work. In the two years Jack had been working for Axion Labs, he hadn't seen a single donut grace the staff table.

He scowled at the sparkling and clean and donut free table, and got a glass of water instead, feeling cheated. The little paper cups next to the drink dispenser were always too small for his hands.

"Fenton."

Jack crumpled the paper cup, then threw it away. "Yeah, Damon?"

"Phone."

Perking up, Jack hurried back to his desk. Maybe it was Mads, calling to give him an excuse to leave early. Or maybe it was his boss, calling to give him a promotion to something he was actually good at doing. Or maybe it was his boss, calling to fire him. He snagged the phone, brought it to his ear. "Jack Fenton."

"Jack."

He recognized the voice. A smile split his face. "Vladdie!" Dropping back into his chair, Jack pushed away the despised remains of the X2 and put his feet up on his desk. "How's your day going?"

"Fabulous," the man replied, his voice smooth as silk. "Listen, Jack. I'm in need of your assistance with something. I've spoken to your supervisor and they've agreed to give you a few days off so you can help me out."

Jack's smile grew. A few days off, and working with his old friend? Then he paused and frowned. "Aren't you in China?"

"Something came up," the man said, "and I had to come home early to deal with it. You happen to have a particular skill-set I need."

"Anything for you, V-man!"

"Hmm, yes," Vlad said. "Are you in the middle of something, or can you come over right now?"

Jack barely gave the Mark X2 a second glance. "I'll be over in a few seconds."

"Don't kill anyone on the way," Vlad muttered before the line went dead.

With the biggest grin he'd had in awhile, Jack tossed the phone back onto the receiver, grabbed his coat, and headed towards the door.

"Wait!" Damon Gray called.

Jack hesitated and turned around. "What?"

"The memo…" Damon held it out.

"Then you'd better get on that X2," Jack said, trying to sound serious. He failed utterly, so he twisted around on his heel and walked out the door as fast as he could without looking like he was running.


	5. Chapter 5

_Thanks nycorrall, PrennCooder, ZoneRobotnik, IvyVine6, Phantom J. Ryder, Guest, bibliophilea, and Invader Johnny for their reviews!_

* * *

><p><strong>Memory<strong>  
>A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Cori<p>

_What's a memory worth?_

* * *

><p>Danny didn't bother going to any of his college courses that day. The little hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end, and that generally meant someone was up to no good – that someone being Vlad Masters. When Vlad was up to something, Danny found it hard to focus on something like math or language. It was a good thing it was Friday, or he'd end up missing several days of classes in a row.<p>

Phantom drifted lazily above his father's car. The man was driving like a bat out of hell, zigging and zagging up the street. Phantom didn't find it necessary to copy the zigs and zags – especially since he had the feeling he knew where his father was headed. With his mother getting that folder from the government, and Phantom – so far, anyways – refusing to tell Vlad what his mother was doing, Vlad's next best option was going to be the gullible and trusting Jack Fenton.

And if his father was going anywhere near Vlad, Phantom was going to follow. College classes be damned.

Twirling a few barrel rolls and swooping down closer to the car, Phantom grinned and tried to enjoy the peacefulness of flight. It used to be his favorite activity. Once he'd figured out how to fly, it had taken all of two seconds to bypass stargazing as his new favorite pastime. Lately, though, even flying had taken on a dull sort of tone in his mind.

Sunlight glinted off the windows of buildings, making stars dance in his eyes when he caught the light. It was a cool spring morning, and there was still a crispness to the air that Phantom loved. Warm heat always made him sluggish; that slight tinge of iciness in the world made everything sharper and clearer.

Leaves were budding on the trees, small specks of bright green against the brown and gray of the cityscape. Tiny birds were starting to return from their winter homes, flitting from tree to tree. Cars trundled by, honking horns at slow-moving pedestrians.

Getting closer to Vlad's mansion, the traffic thinned out considerably. Jack sped up, which made Phantom go from a lazy sort of fly to something more active. Phantom couldn't help the small chuckle as he stretched his arms and legs and dove after his father.

He pulled up to a stop, though, when Jack pulled through the main gates of the Masters mansion. The huge house was meticulously up kept. Windows shone brightly in the sun. The grass was green and stretched from edge to edge. Trees were trimmed and kept inside their exacting shapes. Vlad's obsessive need to control things extended to his house and grounds.

With a scowl, Phantom dropped to the ground. He'd been right – his father was going to see the one and only Vlad Masters. Danny didn't quite dare to cross onto Vlad's territory, at least not with some sort of provocation. Vlad was probably just going to try to pump his father for information on what the government was doing around Fentonworks. Not exactly an incredibly dangerous situation, and definitely not a situation worth escalating just yet.

He paced back and forth along the edge of Vlad's property until his cell phone rang. "I'm not on your land," he said when he connected the call.

"I'm aware," came Vlad's smooth voice. It was almost a purr. "Feel like coming in here? You're more than welcome to join the conversation when your father stumbles his way back from the bathroom."

"Thanks but no thanks," Phantom said. Vlad had the ability to egg him on like none other. "Why did you have to come back from China so soon? I was looking forwards to another fruitloop-free week."

Vlad made a disgusted noise in his nose. "This situation requires my attention, and your father is being annoying tight-lipped. What did you find out?"

Phantom wrinkled his nose. "Not much," he lied, but he had to give Vlad something, so he said the one fact he was sure Vlad already knew. "They gave her a picture of Danielle. It was something to do with her."

"You are as disgustingly unhelpful as your father," Vlad hissed. "I find it impossible to believe that neither of you know anything about your mother's meeting with Director Carson."

"Bribe him like you did the others," Phantom said with a shrug, leaning against a tree. "You go find out, if Dad and I are doing so horrible."

He could hear something that sounded like teeth grinding. It made a smile ghost across Phantom's lips. Any little annoyance to the man was a powerful motivator in his mind. "Can't you see I'm doing this for your protection as well, silly boy?" Vlad said darkly. "They got a hold of Danielle. She died while under their control."

Phantom waited, trying to make it seem like he was just now working out why the government had a picture of Danielle. "You think they know she's half ghost," he said, making his voice tick up at the end like it was a question.

"I know they know."

"Oh." Phantom tipped his head to the side. "So you're worried they'll know about you and me next."

"I want to know what she told them," Vlad said. "I want to know if they already know, if they suspect, or if they're just following random leads with no real proof of anything."

He knew he was sounding stupid when he said, "Oh," again, but he couldn't quite help it. He was failing (or nearly failing) all of his courses at college. He couldn't be that bright of a person. "So…"

Vlad sighed. Phantom knew the man hated spelling things out for him – it was one of the reasons Phantom tried really hard to not jump to conclusions when talking with Vlad. "So, they told your mother, undoubtedly. How long do you think it'll take her to put two and two together and realize you, dear boy, are a ghost-human hybrid as well?"

The thought of his parents learning about his ghost side would have terrified him not all that long ago. But lately, Phantom had grown rather indifferent to the idea of his parents learning about his ghostly hobby. He'd even started to think about just outright telling them and getting the stress of keeping the secret off his back. That though, though, was not something he'd ever tell Vlad. "Oh."

"You are rather worthless," Vlad said. "More and more like your father with every passing day. If only you'd have listened to me years ago – I could have molded you into somebody worth being around."

Phantom's fingers tightened around the phone. He clamped his lips shut and didn't bother to answer. Vlad's 'path to greatness' was a slippery slope of sorta-legal, kinda-illegal, and completely illegal activities. Danny had been on the path once before. It had come with some seriously bad consequences.

There was an annoyed snort. "Your father is returning. Find out what your mother knows. And find out soon, before I have to take matters into my own hands." The line went dead almost before Vlad finished speaking the last word.

Phantom stuffed the phone back into his pocket and crossed his arms over his chest, staring at the mansion and waiting for his father to reappear. He knew that once Vlad came to the conclusion that Jack wouldn't be a good source of information, he'd send the man packing. He just wanted to wait around to make sure that his father actually was allowed to leave the mansion without being 'accidentally' blown up by a ghost. True enough, it was only a few minutes before Jack appeared in the doorway, heading to his car.

After following the man most of the way back to Axion Lab, Phantom pulled a U-turn and headed towards FentonWorks. He had a sort-of appointment with his mother to hand over information on hybrids. Not all the information he knew – he wasn't trusting his mother with that just yet – but he'd tell her what he could.

He breezed over the town. A lot had changed in the few years since he'd gotten his powers. Ghost shields – Axion Labs brand, most of them, after Fentonworks lost all its funding – sat on the top of buildings ready to be activated at the sound of the sirens going off. Several of the more secure buildings even had computer-aided ectoplasmic weapons stationed on their roofs. Danny took the long way around most of those. They rarely shot at him, but it was best to stay out of their way.

It was definitely one of the downsides of his parents' business nearly going bankrupt. Before, he'd been able to mess with the technology and the computer programming (with Tucker's help) to keep the things from actively targeting him. Now he had very little ability to modify the technology. Axion Labs had taken over the consumer ghost protection market, and the place was too heavily guarded for him to sneak into for anything other than a massive problem. What few things he had dismantled had mostly come from objects his father had brought home to work on after supper.

The effects of years of ghost attacks had certainly taken their toll on the town. Although Phantom had gotten better at aiming when fighting a ghost, the ghosts themselves seemed to destroy and wreak havoc on a whole new level. Chunks were missing from almost every building. In the less well-off neighborhoods, many windows were boarded up, unable or unwilling to replace the glass that got broke again and again.

Fentonworks had originally been in a decent neighborhood. Danny had grown up surrounded by well-kept houses and lawns and families. With the influx of ghosts, most of attacks near the Fenton Portal (and thus in the Fentonworks neighborhood) or attacking Phantom (also in the Fentonworks neighborhood), families had moved away. Buildings had sat vacant. The neighborhood was slowly falling apart. It was becoming one of the neighborhoods 'respectable' type families didn't live in. More and more, the windows in Phantom's neighborhood were covered with plywood instead of glass.

Phantom didn't much mind living in an abandoned section of town. It suited his ghostish personality, he supposed. Quiet, alone, and empty.

He breezed towards his home, brushing past the abandoned Ops Center. The paint was starting to chip and flake away. The neon sign Jack had fought tooth and nail for at the city council meeting (and ended up paying fines anyways) was partially broken. It now read 'tonwor'. The brick walls didn't look much different, but the building had the feel of a place left to its own devices for too long.

Phasing through the walls, Phantom entered the basement. His mother was sitting at her little, cluttered desk, eating a slice of microwave pizza. The smell made his mouth water, but Phantom just dropped quietly to the ground and ignored the hungry moment. He could eat later.

Even though he wasn't invisible, his mother was so tied up in something on her computer screen that she didn't seem to notice his presence. He walked up behind her, not wanting to startle her, hoping she'd hear his footsteps and turn around. It was a strange, backwards picture from this morning where Mom had startled him. Eventually, though he didn't have much choice. "Hey."

As predicted, she flinched and twisted around. A small ectopistol was in her hands and pointed towards his head before he could blink. Phantom just stood still, his arms at his sides, and waited. Maddie slowly lowered the gun, staring at him. "Don't do that," she said.

Phantom was about to retort that he'd knocked when he realized he hadn't. Doors were things that were getting harder and harder for him to remember to use. "Sorry," he said with a shrug. "I didn't mean to startle you." He went for a smile. "You have a black belt in martial arts and at least four weapons in your belt. Last thing I was planning on doing was sneaking up on you."

His mother didn't seem to think that was funny, but she buckled the weapon back onto her belt and swiveled her chair around she could sit down without turning her back to him. "Where have you been?"

"Busy." Phantom put his hands into his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. "Ghosts have things to do, you know. I may be dead, but that doesn't mean I just lay around all day with nothing on my calendar."

It was odd, standing in the basement of his house, talking to his mother as a ghost. He had spent a long time avoiding her, assuming that if she ever got a good look at him, she'd realize how close he looked to her son, that if he talked to her for more than just a few clipped sentences, she'd recognize his voice. But, after all this time, he was starting to get the idea that she wouldn't know. Perhaps she didn't want to know.

It was something Clockwork had said once. Humans – all living creatures, actually – have a sort of free will. No ghost can make a human do anything they don't want to do. It's why a ghost can't possess a human and force them to murder. At some point, the human mind kicks in and takes over.

The same with all those times his parents had found out about him and he'd removed that knowledge. Time changes, or reality gauntlets, or dreams… He couldn't have done that if his parents really had wanted to know about his double life. Somewhere deep in her mind, Maddie Fenton knew his secret. Danny had just buried it. She didn't remember she knew it, and didn't necessarily want to know it, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to bury it so well.

"You promised me some information," she said. "And I want answers."

Phantom shrugged a shoulder. "Okay. Shoot." Then, rethinking the word in relation of a ghost speaking to a ghost hunter, he added, "Shoot me the question, not literally shoot at me."

Maddie's lips tugged into a smile. "These ghost-human hybrids… they're real?"

"Yeah," he said. He pulled a chair over and dropped into it backwards, resting his arms on the backrest and his chin on his arms. "Very much so."

"How does Vlad Masters tie into it?"

Phantom hesitated. He'd agreed to tell his mother just about everything, but Vlad's true nature wasn't part of the deal. It wasn't something she needed to know in the context of this problem. "Vlad… is complicated," he hedged, trying to figure out how to say it.

Maddie's lips pressed together, her eyes narrowing. "You said you'd tell me. Not hedge around it."

Phantom shook his head. "I just don't know how to tell you. I've never told anyone this stuff before." He glanced around the room, finding a spider crawling across the floor to focus on. "Vlad found out about hybrids twenty-something years ago. He's been researching them ever since. About six years ago, he got it into his head to try and create one." The spider made it over to the wall and started climbing. "I don't know much of the facts and research and whatever, but he found some kids with some sort of genetic trait in their DNA that made them susceptible to being turned into hybrids. And then… just did it, I guess."

"So Vlad did take these kids and turn them into monsters."

"Not monsters," Phantom said sharply, looking up. "Hybrids aren't evil."

Maddie twisted around and picked up the file, holding it out. "The case against them is pretty strong, Ghost. Murder, bank robbery, possession…"

Phantom shook his head and refused to take the file. He didn't want to read what his strange 'clones' had been doing. "They were brainwashed. They aren't evil. What Vlad did to them, what he made them believe… that's evil. Those are just kids."

"They all look like you."

His nose wrinkled. He'd known that sooner or later she'd make that connection – his mother was a brilliant scientist and it was a rather obvious connection. "He used my ectoplasm," he admitted. A half-truth. Vlad had used his ectoplasm, in conjunction with certain genetic markers. "He used their human body as a base, then grafted in my ectoplasmic signature." And a solid dosing of his genetic code to keep the ectoplasm from destroying the human tissue.

"Why would you agree to that?"

His head jerked up, eyes narrowed. "I didn't." His voice dripped with venom.

Maddie gazed at him thoughtfully for a moment before nodding. "I didn't really think so," she said. "Didn't seem your style." She thumbed through the papers. "I'm going to be partnering with Vlad on a project starting Monday. Try to get some proof that he's involved with this."

Licking his lips, Phantom nodded. "Yeah."

"Any recommendations?"

He snorted out a soft laugh. "Don't do it." A sad smile tugged at his lips. He twisted the chair back and forth, then sighed. "He's smart. Assume he already knows what you're there for. You're spying on him and he knows it, and he's someone who's not afraid to take what he wants. He's got several ghosts that he keeps as slaves – try to avoid them at all costs." He paused, trying to think. "You'll always be watched, recorded. Don't say or do anything anywhere in town that'll give away what you're doing."

Maddie stiffened slightly. "What about here?"

"Think I'm stupid enough to talk to you like this in a place Vlad could listen in?" Phantom laughed. "What do you think I was doing this morning, waiting for you? Debugging the place."

"Vlad's got our house bugged?"

Phantom nodded. "I cleaned it out for you this morning, but Vlad'll worm something in over the next few days, I'm sure." He rolled his eyes. "Massive control freak. Needs to know what everyone is doing."

Maddie closed her eyes and ran a hand over her face. She took a few deep breaths, then she visibly relaxed, letting out a huge sigh. "Okay," she said. "How many are there?"

"How many what?"

"Hybrids."

Phantom felt his face flush. "Oh, yeah. Um… That I know of?" He ticked them off on his fingers for a second, counting. "Twelve? Those eight, and four… no, five others. So thirteen. But five of them died before they even left Vlad's lab."

"What happened to them?"

Phantom shrugged a shoulder, trying to affect nonchalance at seeing a 'clone' of his die in front of him. "They melted. The experiment makes them unstable."

Maddie frowned. "That's what happened to all of these," she said quietly. "The files say they destabilized and melted."

"So they're all gone. At least the ones I know about." Though their deaths were sad, there was also a huge sense of relief. Vlad's creepy experiments were a weight on his mind. He was too young to have to worry about some brainwashed kids that were, in some respect, his kids. Then he felt a wash of guilt at being relieved that they were gone.

Maddie's eyes were studying him closely. "So there are no more hybrids," she said carefully.

"No more of Vlad's human-ghost hybrids anyways," Phantom replied. Technically, there were two more hybrids. And if you count animals… probably dozens more. When he saw his mother's eyebrows knit together, probably noticing how specific he had been, he clarified. "Vlad's first experiments weren't on humans. He experiments on all sorts of animals at his lab in Colorado. Bears, wolves, whatever."

"That's… sickening," Maddie said, obviously taken aback by this new information.

"Yeah," Phantom said. In the silence that followed that statement, Phantom rested his chin back down on his arms and twisted the chair back and forth and back and forth. The tips of his shoes squeaked on the lab floor.

Maddie finally shook her head. "Where does he get away with this?"

It had sounded like a rhetorical question – but Phantom answered anyways. "In his lab." Only after the words were out, did he stop to think about the consequences of that statement. His mother wasn't stupid. She'd ask the next obvious question, then put together the facts-

She blinked up at him. "Where's the lab?"

Phantom flinched. There was the question. "Why?" he hedged, trying to buy himself some time to find a good answer.

"Phantom," she said, her voice turning parental.

"Underground," he said grudgingly.

She picked up a pen and jotted something down. "How do I find it?"

"You can't."

She looked up, holding out the pen. "Can you draw a map to it?"

Phantom shook his head, explaining the problem. "It's underground. You can't get to it. Only ghosts can. It's like a cave, only with no entrance."

"Then how does he get there?"

There was the next obvious question in the chain Phantom had seen coming. "Ghosts…" he said.

She arched an eyebrow. "He relies on ghosts to get him to and from his lab. Ghosts that could abandon him and leave him to die in a little cave underground." Phantom nodded, but she shook her head. "I don't believe that. Vlad's not stupid enough to depend on ghosts like that."

"Believe what you want," Phantom muttered, crossing his fingers that his mother wouldn't put together the last few facts. Everyone that put together the facts about Vlad ended up dead.

Valerie had, three years ago, despite Phantom's best efforts. She'd finally put two and two together and cornered him, demanding an explanation. When he'd given it – at gun point and not at all complete – she'd been furious. And, less than a week later, dead. There was no proof to tie her death to anything other than a tragic accident.

But Phantom knew better. Vlad had her killed.

Lancer had, just before Danny graduated. Well, honestly, Danny had no idea how long Lancer had actually known. He finally clued Danny in just before he graduated. It was the last time Danny saw the teacher – at graduation, handing him that hard-earned diploma. The man had never made it home afterwards. Horrific car accident. Tragic, but an accident.

Only Phantom knew better. Vlad had him killed.

People died when they found out about Vlad, about hybrids. He didn't want his mother to be next on the list.

Maddie gazed at him. "You're holding back."

Phantom sagged in the chair. "I'm telling you what I can," he mumbled into his arms.

Her eyes narrowed. "Why aren't you telling me everything?"

"Because people die," he shot back, sitting up. "You get two steps into the wrong thing and you won't live to see summer. I'm acutely aware of that fact."

"And you care," she said.

"Well, yeah! Who wouldn't?"

She leaned forwards slightly, resting her elbows on her knees. "A ghost wouldn't."

It was perhaps the worst possible decision Phantom could have made, but he was gone from the lab before his brain kicked in to tell him about it. He was in the afternoon sunshine, blazing away from Fentonworks, before he realized he'd done nothing short of confirming her statement by running away. He skidded to a stop in midair, cursing himself. He'd given too much away. He'd been so worried about revealing Vlad as a hybrid that he hadn't covered enough of his own tracks. Watched his own words.

Of course a ghost wouldn't care if she got hurt. Ghosts didn't see humans as creatures worth worrying about. Of course she'd put together that he was a hybrid. That's why Vlad used his ectoplasm. It was obvious.

Blindingly obvious.

He chewed on his lip, worrying the skin between his teeth as he hung in the air. All was not lost – not yet. She knew Phantom was a hybrid… she didn't know about Danny. And she didn't know about Vlad, or Plasmius. Those were all positives.

The woman was perceptive, however. He'd always figured that, given enough clues, she'd put together what was wrong with him really fast. Now he was about to see how fast. He could only hope that she got through this job working with Vlad before those puzzle pieces fit together in her head.

She was going over there on Monday. He would have to find some way to protect her.

He sank out of the sky, coming to rest near the top of a tree in the park near his house. People walked past, their lives going about like normal, unaware of the turmoil in his mind. A squirrel chattered at him, annoyed about something, before racing down the tree and vanishing off further into the park.

"What do I do?" he asked the sky.

Then he decided to turn to the person who always had the right answers.

-.-

Jazz Fenton finished her bachelor's degree in three years, then immediately started in on her Master's in Applied Psychology. Her teachers had recommended leaving school for some time to get some real-world experience, but Jazz had refused. She had plenty of real-world experience dealing with her little brother and her crazy family.

She was focusing on the use of paranormal techniques in psychotherapy sessions. There turned out to be very little research on the subject, so Jazz considered herself to be breaking new ground – creating a whole new branch of applied psychology. Some day, students would be reading her name, much like people did with Maslov, Pavlov, and Piaget. Her brother, being mostly paranormal himself, ended up being both a test subject and research assistant.

She was at the college library when her phone vibrated. She stuck a post-it on the line she was on and grabbed her phone, hoping to get the conversation over with quickly. She had a lot of research to do today. "Hello?"

"Hey, Jazz."

Perking up, Jazz looked away from her book and grinned. "Hey, little bro. What's the occasion?"

"You busy?"

There was a tone to Danny's voice that made Jazz close her books. "Let me check out a few things and get out of the library. I'll call you back in a few?"

Danny's lack of protest and it not being important, or that it was able to wait to later clued her in that the boy was worried about something and wanted to talk. "Okay."

Jazz hung up and grabbed the books, tapping her foot impatiently as the librarian scanned the codes and checked them out, then hurried out the library and down the steps. She redialed the number. Danny picked up almost immediately. "What's up?"

"Mom signed a contract with the government she can't tell anyone about or she gets locked away in prison for life for treason, with the possibility of the death penalty."

The phone almost dropped from her hands. "What? And Dad let her?"

"He seems to agree with her," Danny said. He sounded incensed. "Do you know what they want her to do? They gave her a file full of pictures of ghost-human hybrids."

Jazz stopped walking, just standing in the middle of the sidewalk and ignoring the people brushing past her. "What?"

"And they want her to spy on Vlad to get proof that he's creating them."

A black hole seemed to open up beneath Jazz's feet. She felt her stomach tumble down into the hole. "What?" It was barely audible this time.

"And, to top it all off, I was talking to her-"

"Danny…"

"Phantom was talking to her, and now she knows that Phantom is a hybrid too." Danny sounded frustrated and annoyed. She could almost picture him, pacing around in circles and running an agitated hand through his hair. "Jazz…"

She nodded, not caring that Danny would be able to see the gesture. Her brain was swirling around in circles, trying to hold on to those facts. "Danny…" she tried again.

"I don't know what to do! I didn't mean for her to find out. I was just trying to protect her. Now she's going to be in Vlad's house – Vlad's house, Jazz! – and she knows!"

"Does she know about Vlad?" she asked.

"I don't think so. Not yet. But she'll figure it out really quick." Danny was worried. She could hear it in his voice. And for good reason – Danny had taken it really hard, and really personally, when Valerie and Lancer had died. He had blamed himself for both their deaths because their revelation of Phantom being half human had lead them to the knowledge about Vlad, which had been the end of their life. Danny was, no doubt, seeing his mother following in their footsteps.

Jazz's heart tightened. She could so easily picture their mother following Valerie and Lancer's footsteps as well. "Talk her out of it. Get out of the contract. Make her stay home."

"I can't." Danny's voice broke on the second word. "She really wants to do this." He was quieter when he spoke next. "I was trying to protect her, Jazz. I thought if I told her just enough, she'd know what to stay away from. I thought she'd be safer with the information than going in blind."

"You did the right thing." Jazz slowly started walking again.

"No, I didn't! I condemned her!"

"Danny!" Jazz said sharply. "You didn't. You did the right thing. Mom's smart – you think she wouldn't have figured it out even if you said nothing to her?"

Danny was quiet, listening.

"She'd have figured it out anyways, but then she wouldn't have anyone to turn to and ask questions to. That would have gotten her in even more trouble. Now, when she starts putting pieces together, you'll be there to help and guide her and protect her." Jazz was coming up with the words off the top of her head, but they were sounding really professional and awesome, so she kept at it. "You did the right thing. And remember, Vlad likes her. He won't hurt her, even if she finds something out he doesn't want her to."

"Yeah," Danny said. He sounded vaguely reassured.

Making a snap decision, Jazz picked up the pace and started heading towards her advisor's office. "I'm going to come home for a few days."

Danny's didn't argue. Jazz grimaced – it was telling of how worried he was.

"I have a few things to wrap up here, but I'll be on the road before night. I should be home by morning." She nodded to herself. "We'll get this figured out. Everybody will walk out of this fine, Danny. We always do. We're Fentons."

"Yeah." Danny sounded like he had almost laughed a bit on that word. "Thanks, Jazz."

"See you in a few hours, bro." She hung up the phone and started up the stairs. This constituted as a family emergency. Danny seemed to really believe their mother's life was at stake. A few days away from college would not be that much of a challenge, and definitely worth it. Besides, those nagging little concerns from her conversations with him were starting to build again. Perhaps it was time to actually confront her brother – and her parents – face to face.


	6. Chapter 6

_Thanks Guest, Superpocalypse, MsFrizzle, Phantom J. Ryder, just-phasing-through, WillowWeed, bibliophilea, Wooster, IvyVine6, Invader Johnny, and nikodark for their reviews!_

* * *

><p><strong>Memory<strong>  
>A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Cori<p>

_What's a memory worth?_

* * *

><p>When Jack Fenton got home from work, he could tell there was something going on nobody was telling him about. Maddie had on her usual smile, but the glitter was gone from her eyes and she had those small lines around her mouth that that came from being under a lot of stress. Danny looked tense, like he was ready to start climbing walls again. Not for the first time, Jack wondered if they ought to get Danny into some sort of therapy. The boy was seemingly always on edge, exhausted, or depressed looking.<p>

"How was your day, Jack?" Maddie asked, taking his coat and pecking a little kiss on his cheek. Danny was sitting on the couch, apparently attempting to both slouch nonchalantly and be anxious at the same time.

"We're still working on that X2 launcher," Jack grumbled. "If they'd let me tear out all the insides and rebuild it from scratch, I'd be done already. But they insist on doing it their way." Jack felt his mood noticeably brighten when Maddie rolled her eyes at the comment. At least he wasn't the only one who thought Axion Lab was being idiotic. "And I went over to see Vlad today!" Jack grinned.

Both his wife and son looked up at him with the same expression. A flicker of some sort of emotion, then empty. Danny glanced back at the TV as soon as he realized Jack was looking in his direction.

"What'd you guys talk about?" Maddie asked.

"Vlad was curious about your government contract. Wonder how he even knew about it," Jack said. His forehead wrinkled in thought. Now that he thought about it, Vlad had been very interested in that contract. He'd almost seemed obsessed over the idea – unable to talk much about anything else. And once it was clear Jack wasn't giving him the information he wanted, Jack was almost rushed from the house.

Jack brushed away the concerns brought up by the thought. Vlad was a busy man. Jack was happy his old friend had made some time for them to see each other. Vlad had even been nice enough to get him some time off work!

Maddie grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the kitchen. The kitchen being his second favorite room in the house, and the person on his arm being his favorite person in the world – Jack followed. "What'd you tell him?" Maddie asked curiously.

"Nothing," Jack answered, startled that she'd even need to ask. He'd signed a massive nondisclosure agreement. He wasn't going to go around telling the first person he ran into that was curious about the project. "What's for supper?"

"I ordered pizza," she said, making sure the door to the kitchen was closed firmly behind her. "Jack, you need to not go over to Vlad's again."

Jack, who'd been heading to the fridge to grab a can of soda, stopped and looked over his shoulder. "Why not?" The woman chewed her lip a moment, looking unsure of what to say. "Mads…" Jack abandoned his search for something to drink and walked over to her, resting his hands on her shoulders and looking her in the eye. "What happened?"

He felt her sag slightly under his touch. "Vlad's name has been coming up in the research," she said, her voice nearly a whisper. Her eyes flicked back and forth between his eyes, searching his gaze for something. "I think he's connected to these hybrids somehow. In a not-good way."

With a frown, Jack shook his head. He couldn't imagine Vlad being mixed up in this hybrid nonsense, and especially 'in a-not good way.' "Mads, Vladdie…" he trailed off. Comforting someone was not high on his list of things he was good at, but he took a stab at it. "Vladdie's a good person. He's been so helpful the past few years."

"I know," Maddie said. "He has been, and I know he's your friend, Jack. I'm just asking you to stay away from him until this contract is over."

Jack's eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. But he nodded. If Maddie was asking for it – especially while looking this stressed – he'd do it. "Okay, Mads. If that would make you feel better."

She smiled. And it was an actual, real smile rather than the slightly-fake one he'd gotten earlier.

He smiled back, pulling her into a hug before returning to his quest for a can of soda from the cupboard while she walked downstairs into the basement. He'd do his best to stay away from Vlad.

Wondering what sort of information Maddie could have on Vlad, Jack opened his can with that distinctive crack-fizz. Maddie hadn't shown him the entire file. She couldn't, actually. She'd apparently had to work pretty hard just to get to tell him anything about the topic.

Shaking the topic from his mind, he wandered back into the living room and dropped onto the couch next to his son. "Hey," he greeted.

Danny shot him a small smile. "Hey."

"How was class today?"

The kid's eyes clouded over. "Didn't go," Danny said with a shrug, turning his attention back to the program on TV as commercials started to blare through the room.

Jack frowned. It was really no surprise Danny had nearly failed his last semester – he missed so many classes. "Why didn't you go today?"

"What's the point?" he muttered, grabbing the remote and changing the channel to something new.

Jack wasn't sure he was supposed to have heard that, so he let it drop. Resting his arms on the back of the couch, he tried to relax after a long, tense day of doing something absolutely inane. Only he couldn't quite get his mind off the fact that Maddie – and now Vlad – appeared to be hiding things from him.

He liked mysteries, even if he wasn't particularly good at solving them. They were just like inventions – puzzles to be solved. His mouth twitched up into a grin at the thought of finding out what they were all hiding from him.

And how impressed Maddie would be when he told her what he'd learned.

* * *

><p>The next morning, Maddie got up bright and early, as usual. She set coffee brewing, then turned on the Saturday morning news. Knowing neither of her boys had to be anywhere today – although Danny surely had tons of homework to catch up on and really should find a weekend job he could stick with – she knew she wouldn't see either of them until nearly lunchtime. Weekend mornings were always her favorite. Quiet. Peaceful.<p>

One of the news anchors on TV changed to a breaking news story from earlier that morning. There'd been yet another ghost attack. This one relatively minor, it appeared. Phantom had appeared – of course, although Maddie still wasn't sure if the constant ghost fighting was his obsession or if the ghost was simply territorial – and chased the ghost away before much more than a few shields could be activated.

Maddie couldn't help but feel a little tinge of regret whenever she saw one of the Axion Labs shield activating. Those would have been Fentonworks shields. They had been months ahead of Axion Labs in the creation of a commercial-grade ghost shield. Then everything had fallen apart. Despite their best efforts, Axion Labs had finished their shields first. Their patent had gone through – unlike Fentonwork's application, which Maddie was still convinced she had gotten in first – and now every shield sold had an Axion Labs logo. Millions of dollars in profit vanished in smoke. Thousands of chances to build their brand gone. Fentonworks could only claim a handful of the shields around town – beta models, really.

And yet, not a single person had died in the last two years since the shields had started activating. Nobody had even gotten seriously hurt. The shields were extremely effective in guarding the populace from the creatures until the guns – or Phantom – drove them away. Although Fentonworks had missed out, and missed out big, there was a sense of satisfaction in knowing that the war was going their way.

That, and the Fentonworks models were technologically superior. The Axion Labs models had a tendency to flicker. Jack had even located a pattern to the flickering once when he'd gotten distracted and stared at the shield long enough. Fentonworks shields didn't flicker. They operated at a slightly higher wattage, but offered more protection.

Maddie was just trying to find that new twist to the shield, something patentable that Axion Labs didn't have yet, to set the Fentonworks shields apart from Axion's mass-produced version. She hadn't found it yet. But when she did… watch out Axion Labs. A smile curled her lips at the thought.

The sound of their phone ringing made Maddie set down her coffee. She glanced at the clock - who could be calling at seven in the morning? With a slight frown, she leaned over and snagged the phone with the tips of her fingers. "Fentonworks," she greeted pleasantly.

"Maddie," came the reply.

Slime dripped from her name. Maddie hesitated. "Vlad," she said. She forced her tone to remain gentle. "Good morning." Dozens of reasons for why the man could be calling flashed through her mind - each worse than the last.

"I hope I didn't wake you," the man purred. "But I know you're an early riser."

"It's fine. How can I help you?" Maddie curled her toes around the legs of her chair, bracing herself for the man's demands to know about her government contract and the real point of their Monday meeting.

"Ah, it's you that can help me, in this case. Something has come up for Monday and I'll be unable to make our appointment. I was hoping we could reschedule."

"Oh, yes, that's fine." Maddie relaxed a bit. Getting more time before their meeting would allow her to get more information from Phantom and be more prepared. Potentially, she'd be able to get the information she needed without even meeting with Vlad. Pushing away from the table, she walked over the to calendar. "When can you meet?"

"My calendar is quite full. However, I have a few hours this afternoon-"

Maddie froze. "Today," she said, startled. "It's Saturday."

Vlad chuckled. "Yes, it is. Would that possibly work for you?"

"I…" Maddie wasn't generally at a loss for words, but the only thought going through her mind at the moment was 'not ready for this, not ready for this'.

"Unless you have some reason for not wanting to meet with me," Vlad said.

Unwilling to give the man any reason to doubt her, there was one answer she could give. "No, no. Today's fine. Two o'clock?"

"Perfect." She could hear Vlad's grin in his voice. "I will see you then."

"Yes. Goodbye." Maddie heard the dial tone being to buzz in her ear as she slowly lowered the handset. Their meeting was going to be today. In one phone call, she went from several days of prep time to less than six hours.

A door banged open, making her flinch. "Mom?"

"Sweetheart?" Maddie set down the phone and walked over to Jazz. The girl was lugging in a bag – she looked to be staying a few days. Maddie pushed her concerns about Vlad away to focus on her daughter's surprise appearance. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Jazz said with a smile. "I just missed you guys, and I don't have anything going on at school for a while, so I thought I'd take a long weekend to come see you."

Tears nipped at Maddie's eyes as she hugged the girl tightly. "I've missed you to," she said. "You drove all night? You should go get some sleep."

"I'm fine," Jazz said with a wave of a hand. "Gregory was heading home as well, so we carpooled. I got some sleep."

Feeling relieved that her daughter hadn't driven all night by herself, Maddie gestured towards the table. "Come sit down. Tell me about school."

Jazz poured herself a cup of coffee and settled down at the table. "Same old," she said. Then she sat forwards, resting elbows on the table. Her face took on a serious expression. "Danny called yesterday."

That was just like her. Down to business. Jazz had been hinting to her parents about her worries of Danny being in some sort of depression for months. Maddie hadn't brushed off the concerns, but she was taking more of a 'wait and see' approach. Danny was a Fenton, and they tended to bounce back if you gave them time and space. "What'd he say?"

"You signed a contract with the government again?" There was no accusation in her voice, just curiosity.

Maddie's lips tightened. "Yes," she said. "But don't worry about it. I know what I'm doing."

"Danny's really worried."

"You didn't come all the way here to tell me that," Maddie said, shaking her head. "I already know Danny's worried-"

Jazz leaned forwards a bit more, reaching over and grabbing Maddie's hand. Her fingers were warm from holding the coffee cup. "Mom," she said, "Danny's been really worried a lot lately." There was something to her tone of voice that caught Maddie's attention. Worry. Fear?

"What did he say to you?" she asked, her attention fully focused on her daughter. She'd never been worried about Danny actively hurting himself in some way – every time Jazz had mentioned it, Maddie had brushed it off… not her son, it wasn't like him – but she knew Danny would worry himself into a hole if someone let him.

"Nothing, really," Jazz said. She sighed and sat back, picking up her cup of coffee and sipping at it before grimacing. "I forgot how strong you guys make this." She got up and grabbed the milk out of fridge, mixing some with her coffee. "It's just a feeling."

Maddie stared down into her coffee, momentarily annoyed with the fact that Danny had chosen this particular moment to have a mental breakdown. She was just about to dive into a project with Vlad – who as apparently experimenting on people – and couldn't handle anything more on her plate. Then she felt a wash of guilt over the thought. She loved her son. He came before anything.

Quietly, mentally, she made a vow that she would try to spend more time with him. If Jazz had driven all this way, then she must be seeing something Maddie wasn't. Even with the stress of Vlad hanging over her head, she needed to be spending enough time with Danny to see what she was seeing.

"Mom?"

Maddie blinked up at her, then smiled. It only felt a little forced. "It's nothing, Sweetie."

Jazz shrugged, putting the milk back and closing the door to the fridge with her foot. "Well, I'm going to talk to him."

"If you can get anything out of him," Maddie said with a small smile. "He's gotten really good at keeping secrets."

"Wonder where he got that from," Jazz teased, settling back into her seat at the table. "Definitely not from Dad."

Maddie shot her a mock glare, the look softened by the growing smile. "Let me know if you learn anything," she said. She shook her head. "Danny's definitely in a bit of a funk right now." If there was anything she could do…

"Oh, definitely," Jazz said. "Got huge plans for the day?"

With a slight hesitation, Maddie said, "I'm going to meet with Vlad later." She was expecting her daughter to react negatively to the news - the girl was far from Vlad's biggest fan. Instead, she got a passive nod. Maddie stared at her daughter. "You're not surprised."

Jazz half-shook her head, but then stopped and shrugged, stammering a second before coming up with an answer. "I-p-v-v-very surprised," the girl said, a flush making her cheeks pink. "I just wasn't really listening." Jazz had inherited her father's ability to lie.

Maddie hummed, the sound making her nose vibrate. "Danny told you." There was really no other option, but the color deepening on Jazz's face was all the confirmation she needed. She leaned back in her chair with a sigh. "That child. Every time I think he's not paying attention…" She shook her head. "That's very much a secret," she said, trying to sound stern. "You can't tell anyone."

"Yup," she replied. "Top secret contract. I got that." She rolled her eyes. "I grew up in this family, Mom. I know what a secret means." Then she grew serious. "Mom… be careful. Vlad makes the hair in the back of my neck stand on end."

Maddie smiled at her, saying, "I know what I'm doing. Why don't you go wake up your brother?" Jazz looked about to disagree, but Maddie waved her hand dismissively. "You drove all this way. He certainly doesn't need to sleep in if you can't."

The girl seemed to catch on to what she was saying. An evil grin spread across Jazz's face as she rose from her chair. "I'll be right back."

Nodding, Maddie sipped at what was left of her coffee and waited in the kitchen for her quiet, lonely morning ritual to come to a crashing end. If there was one thing in the world she knew, it was that Danny loved his sister. Of all the people in the Fenton household, her two children were amazingly close. Danny would moan and groan and complain about being woken up early – despite going to bed rather early – but he'd have a smile on his face.

After Jazz creaked up the stairs, she heard her son wake up. It was a shout and a crash of a body falling out of bed, followed by Jazz's light laughter. After a few seconds, Danny's voice joined in – complaints, mixed with laughter. A smile grew on Maddie's face.

Then faded, every so slightly. It was starting to get rare for her to have her entire small family back under one roof. Jazz was incredibly busy at college. Now twenty-two and with a busy social life of her own, Jazz usually only made her way home on the major holidays. And, of course, it was going to fall on the same day as her rescheduled appointment with Vlad. She settled back in her chair. It was too bad Vlad hadn't called five minutes later - it would have given her the excuse to push the meeting back.

On the other hand, Jazz's visit would be a great excuse for keeping the meeting short.

When her children tumbled into the kitchen – Danny looking rumpled and sleep deprived but with a smile lurking on his face – Maddie got up to make something for everyone to eat for breakfast. Pancakes. Perhaps some scrambled eggs.

As the pancake sizzled, Maddie listened to her children talk. Jazz seemed to have already started in on her quest to pump some sort of information out of Danny. But the boy was startlingly close-lipped compared to how he'd been as a child. "So, how's college?"

Based on the change in tone, Danny's good mood evaporated with the question. "Same-old," he said. "It's just the community college."

"But you're getting your AA," Jazz said. "That's the first step."

Danny made a noncommittal noise in his throat before appearing next to Maddie and grabbing plates, cups, and silverware out of the cupboard. "You making some for Dad?"

Maddie nodded. Although the pancakes would be long cold before the man got up, she didn't particularly want to deal with his pouting when he found out the rest of the family going pancakes he hadn't.

"Have you heard from Sam or Tucker lately?"

There wasn't an answer. Maddie didn't turn around to check whether or not Danny had shaken his head.

"Danny, they're your friends. Don't push them away-"

"They're in other states," Danny said simply. "Hundreds and hundreds of miles away. They're getting new friends."

Maddie could hear the frown in Jazz's voice. "You can keep old friends and make new ones…"

Another beat of no reply.

"Danny this isn't about…" Jazz trailed off, but Maddie's ears had perked up. About what?

"Jazz," Danny replied, a warning tone in his voice.

And that was the end of the conversation. The two siblings sat in silence, the companionable grins and teasing done for the time being. Maddie transferred the finished pancakes to a plate and set it in the microwave to stay warm before starting in on cooking some eggs. The cracking of the egg shells was loud in the kitchen.

Maddie decided to break the silence. She stirred the eggs, then turned around to eye her children. Danny was apparently engrossed in something on the back of his hands, Jazz was staring intently at the top of her brother's head. "How is your research going, Sweetie?"

Jazz blinked and looked over at her. "Just fine," she said. "I found an undergrad research assistant, actually. As nobody's ever gotten a master's degree in the field I'm trying to get into, I have to prove that it actually is a field of study."

"Nobody thinks paranormal psychology is a real research field?" Danny teased. "Really? Shocker."

Jazz scowled at him. "Nobody thought paranormal technology was a real field ten years ago. And it's one of the fastest growing and most profitable sectors in the tech world right now. I'll have you know-"

Danny held up his hands in surrender. "I know, I know," he said with a laugh. "I've heard the spiel."

Maddie shook her head and poured the cooked eggs onto a plate, grabbed the pancakes, and headed over to the table. "I'm sure you'll be famous some day, Sweetheart," she said. "It just takes a lot to get there."

Silence fell as the Fenton clan, sans Jack, dug into their breakfast. Maddie smiled to herself, enjoying the quiet morning with her children. She pushed away her worries about later this afternoon to focus on the here and now.

It was Danny that ultimately broke the quiet. "So, how's the newest boyfriend?" he asked innocently.

To Maddie's surprise and confusion, Jazz just laughed. A few beats later, Danny joined in with a real, honest chuckle. It'd been so long since she'd heard Danny laugh… She smiled at her daughter, thankful that the girl had chosen to come home.

* * *

><p>Vlad Masters. Public owner of Dalv Corp and it's subsidiaries (of which Axion Labs now was), behind-the-scenes owner of at least a half-dozen other companies around the world, and puppet master of an untold number of others.<p>

Danny hated him with a passion. There were few humans that Danny could claim to really hate – and Vlad topped the list by far. Years ago, Danny had come to the conclusion that the best way to coexist with was to simply ignore and avoid. He'd used that technique on Dash in high school to varying degrees of success. It seemed to work better on Vlad, since the man – at least most days – wasn't going around tracking him down anymore. Having declared the boy 'too much like his father for his own good,' Danny was now classified as unsaveable, unmoldable, and generally left to his own devices.

Of course, that had all come to a crashing halt when his mother was contracted to spy on the man. Now, direct contact was unavoidable.

Phantom dove through the air, coming to a stop at the edge of the Masters mansion. His mother's impromptu meeting started in a little over an hour. He ground his teeth at that. He should have easily foreseen Vlad pushing the meeting up. After all, the billionaire had ending a business meeting in China and flown home for just the rumor of the government's plan. There's no way the man would be patient enough to wait for Monday.

Before his mother showed up, Phantom needed to speak with the man. Taking a phone out of his pocket, Phantom hit the number for Vlad's personal line.

"Twice in two days," Vlad said, rather than his usual greeting. "I must be popular."

"I want to talk."

"You have my divided attention for five seconds," Vlad muttered. "Speak."

"I know what the government wants with Mom." Phantom waited, wondering if Vlad would just hang up or if he'd stay to parlay. He had no doubt that Vlad already knew what his mother was heading there to do. The man was horrifically intelligent, morally slippery, and had fingers wound around the throat of nearly everyone of importance.

Vlad snorted. "You are nearly twelve hours too late with that information for me to care. Good day, Daniel."

"I know where the Ring is." Phantom stared at the mansion, a smirk on his face, sure that Vlad was watching him on a security camera.

Silence filled the phone line. "What ring?" Vlad's voice was quiet.

"The one you've been looking for." It was a major card that Phantom had long held close to his chest. The Ring of Rage. Vlad had been searching for the Ring for decades – and nearly destroyed Amity Park when Phantom was fifteen. After Phantom had locked Pariah Dark back up in his sarcophagus, the Ring had gone missing. A few years ago, Phantom had learned of its location. "You want it?"

There was a cascade of red sparks around the house as the ghost shield went down. "Come in." Then the phone line went dead.

"If you insist," Phantom said anyways before stuffing the phone back into his pocket and taking to the air. He locked in on Vlad - the man was making no attempt to hide himself - and phased through walls and floors before coming to a stop before Plasmius. It was their first face-to-face meeting in nearly eighteen months, despite living only two miles apart. "Hello."

"Little Badger," the man greeted, his arms crossed over his chest and a gleam in his red eyes. A smirk lurked at the corners of his mouth and his fangs glistened when his spoke. "How nice to see you again."

Phantom kept back his shiver and straightened his back. The air around Plasmius was always tinged with some shadowy, cold feeling that made Phantom's skin crawl. "Agree to disagree," he muttered. "Mom's coming to talk to you."

"About hybrids," Plasmius agreed, leaning against his desk. "Your brothers and sister, I hear."

"Don't call them that," Phantom said, bristling.

Plasmius shrugged a shoulder. "I don't know what you want from me, child."

"I want you to promise you'll leave my family alone."

The smirk that had been on Plasmius's lips vanished. "Your family is digging into something neither of us can let them learn about. It's in our best interests-"

"I don't want you digging through my mom's mind and taking away her memories again." Phantom scowled at the other hybrid, fingers winding into fists. "I don't want you to touch her. You, your powers, anyone under your orders, or any technology, drugs, or artifacts you have."

Plasmius let his arms drop to his sides. "You do not understand the balance of power in this town, boy." His voice was dark and menacing. "And you don't realize the bigger picture."

"I realize just fine-"

"You know a pitiful amount of nothing," the older hybrid snapped. "You don't understand the lengths people have gone to in order to keep people like you and me a secret from the general populace. And you don't understand the consequences of someone like your parents getting involved."

"My parents-"

"Aren't going to know anything." Plasmius stood up from his slouch against his desk. Red sparks of energy flickered around him in a little tornado of lightning bugs. "It's a decision that has already been made."

Phantom scowled at him, annoyed that Plasmius wasn't listening to a word he said. "The Ring-"

"It's in the world's best interest to keep your parents out of the loop. Director Carson doesn't realize that." Plasmius stepped forwards, coming over to stand toe-to-toe with Phantom. Plasmius was almost a half head taller than Phantom still, despite the boy's growth spurts. "When his supervisors find out that Carson was talking to your mother, they'll put an end to that."

Phantom clenched his fists tighter, waiting to see if Plasmius was actually finished speaking so he could finish a sentence. "So you do control the Guys in White."

"Of course I do," he scoffed. "Don't be stupid. Director Carson's days as head of his department are numbered."

Phantom glared up at the older man. "So what did you let me in here to talk about, then? If you're not willing to barter at all?" There was no way he was going to let Plasmius touch his parents, regardless of what Plasmius was saying.

"Oh, I'm willing to barter," Plasmius said, the smirk returning. "I just didn't think you were stupid and naïve enough to think I'd allow your parents the knowledge of ghost-human hybrids."

"What, then?" Phantom asked skeptically.

Plasmius's grin was cold. His eyes darkened several shades before his spoke. "There are many ways to take knowledge from a human's brain. Painless. Destructive. Torture. Death…" he trailed off, eyeing Phantom. "I'm very willing to barter about how I remove that knowledge, Daniel, and whether or not you still have parents after I do so."

Phantom's heart felt like it stopped in his chest. "What?"

"Of course, I would likely not permanently damage your dear mother. I do adore her so," Plasmius said, studying the claws on his hands. "Your father on the other hand…"

Phantom stared at him. This conversation was not going at all how he'd expected it to go. He'd planned on trading knowledge about the Ring of Rage in return for Plasmius staying far away from his parents. Shaking himself, he raised his chin. "I want you to not even touch-"

"Not going to happen." Plasmius returned his arms to folded over his chest.

"Plasmius-"

"Not going to happen," Plasmius repeated sternly. "Can't happen. And the fact that you don't seem to understand that shows how little of the world you actually understand and how young you still are. Open your eyes a little, Badger. The world is not the place you want it to be. Now, if you want to discuss how your parents are treated while in my care removing those memories, I'm all ears. Otherwise, leave."

Energy sparkled around Phantom without conscious thought. He ground his teeth, fingers tightly curled into fists. "I'm not letting you touch my parents."

A malicious smile curled Plamius's lips. "I'm sure I will enjoy going through you to get them. Leave, boy."

"I'm not letting you-"

"And I'm getting that Ring." Plasmius's eyes were a deep, dark red. The swirls of light glowed to the beat of his heart. "Now that I know you have its location in your head… I'm getting that Ring."

Phantom took a small step backwards, startled at the coldness spreading through the little office. Then he stopped himself and forced a step forwards. "I'm not-"

Something sharp jabbed him in the ribs. Phantom jerked and cried out as an electric shock made all his muscles convulse involuntarily. Finding himself on the ground, he rolled over onto his back to see one of Plasmius's copies standing over him, a small electric stun gun in its hands. The copy smirked at him before tossing the stun gun to the real Plasmius and fading into nothingness.

"What?" Phantom whispered. His voice was broken and raspy.

"A little gift from me to you," Plasmius replied, his voice empty and frozen, "to remind you why it is you stay out of my way and why it is you do as I say. I told you to leave and you chose to stay and argue. If I have to tell you again, the consequences will be dire." With that, the hybrid swirled on his heel, his cape snapping at the sudden movement, and stalked through a door deeper into the mansion.

Phantom groaned and rolled onto his hands and knees, then levered himself to his feet. He hated Vlad's collection of stun guns with a passion that almost mirrored his hatred of the man himself. While his parents had focused on ectoplasm-based technology, Vlad's experiments had focused on human electricity. Different frequencies did all sorts of different things to ghosts. Standing in Vlad's office, swaying back and forth on his heels, Phantom wondered what this little weapon had done to him.

Thankfully, the effects never lasted long. Several hours seemed to be the norm. A day at most. "Damn it," Phantom whispered, rubbing his head with his hand.

This was why he stayed away from Plasmius. The man was always thinking two steps ahead of anything Phantom could do. It was all Phantom could do to fight Plasmius to a stalemate. Even when Phantom 'won' a confrontation, Plasmius seemed to have three or four contingency plans in place so that he'd come out smelling like roses.

He glared at the door he'd watch Plasmius vanish through. Really, he should go follow the older hybrid and smash the man to pieces. Phantom was more powerful that Plasmius, but Plasmius was smarter and highly trained. Following Plasmius and attacking him would land them both in the hospital. And, if he were honest with himself, he knew that it would gain his family nothing but a few days of recovery time.

Phantom floated into the air…

He scowled at the ground, which was still thoroughly connected to his feet. A few seconds of fumbling with his apparently nonexistent powers told him exactly what Plasmius's fun little weapon had accomplished. "Fucker," Phantom hissed, stalking towards the door and yanking it open and stalking down the hallway. "I'm going to get you back for this someday."

He made it to the front door without seeing a hair of Plasmius. He walked down the front steps, hands stuffed into his pockets, trying to decide what to do next. He shouldn't have come here, that much was obvious. Trying to protect his parents this way was getting him nowhere. And now he had to deal with his powers being turned off for several hours.

Stepping off Vlad's property, the ghost shield sprang up inches behind his heels. He glared at it for a moment, knowing that Vlad had to have been watching him leave, before slinking up the road a few blocks and dropping onto a bench. It was about forty-five minutes until his mother's meeting. He needed a plan before then to keep his mother safe, because it seemed as though Vlad was dead-set on removing her memories of half-ghost hybrids. While he wasn't sure he wanted his parents to know about hybrids, he was sure he didn't want anyone digging around in their heads – especially if that anyone was Vlad. And time was ticking away.


	7. Chapter 7

_Thanks Invader Johnny, IvyVine6, and Phantom J. Ryder for their reviews!_

* * *

><p><strong>Memory<strong>  
>A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Cori<p>

_What's a memory worth?_

* * *

><p>Maddie gave her daughter and husband a hug before stepping out of her house and heading to her car. Digging through her pockets for her keys, Maddie didn't pay much attention to who was sitting her passenger seat until she had turned the car on and was already backing out of the driveway. "Gah!" She jerked when she finally noticed her glowing, scowling passenger.<p>

"Vlad knows you're coming."

"Don't do that," she hissed, taking a few deep breaths in an attempt to slow her heart rate before pulling the car out of the driveway and onto the street. "And of course he does. He called this morning-"

"He knows why you're coming."

She glanced over at the young ghost. He was staring at her, the greenish mist in his eyes swirling and pulsing with energy. "The government said-"

"He has his fingers wrapped around so many government officials it's not funny," Phantom said blandly. "He knows why you're coming, and he's ticked about it. Stop the car."

Maddie pressed her lips together. She wasn't sure how much she trusted this strange ghost – one that she was steadily becoming convinced was one of these hybrids the government was having her study. "Why wait until now to tell me this?"

"Because it took me that long to walk to your house," the ghost muttered. Then he sighed. "Look, trust me on this. Vlad knows why you're coming and he's planning on now letting you leave with the knowledge you have. Please pull the car over."

"I'm going to be late-"

"Vlad knows you're going to be late. He knows I'm going to talk to you, he probably knows what I'm going to tell you, and he's probably got the car bugged and is listening in anyways." Phantom's voice had edged into fury, but Maddie had the feeling the anger wasn't focused in her direction. "Maddie. Please."

Tight lipped, Maddie nodded and pulled into the parking lot of a local convenience store. She put on the brakes and took the car out of drive. Turning to the ghost, she crossed her arms and waited.

"When Director Carson came to you, he was acting on his own without the okay from his superiors. They're going to make him disappear for what he did." Phantom's voice was more hollow than usual. It echoed emptily in the car.

"Disappear?" Maddie repeated quietly. Did that mean what she thought it meant?

Phantom shrugged. "That's what I hear. And then they'll come down on you – and Jack, since you told him. Potentially your entire family. Information about ghost-human hybrids is really dangerous."

Maddie nodded slowly. "You told me that," she said, her voice barely audible above the sound of her idling car. "I knew the risks-"

"You don't understand!" Phantom said, his voice cracking on the last word. He paused, closing his eyes a second, visibly reigning in his emotions. Then he took a deep breath. "Vlad is going to remove your memories." His eyes slowly opened. The green mist was swirling agitatedly. "When you leave his house today, you won't remember anything about this government project."

The idea that someone could modify her memories was ludicrous. She shook her head and snorted. "The technology to do that is years away-"

"How many times have you figured out I'm a hybrid?"

Maddie stopped dead at the question. She blinked at him, startled. Phantom was staring at the dashboard, his eyes tracing the dozens of nicks and cuts in the plastic from years of use. "Once…?" How many times could one person figure out something so life changing?

"This is number eight," Phantom said dully. "That I know of, anyways."

Her mouth felt dry. "That's… that's impossible…"

His lips were pressed tightly together. "Look," he said with a sigh. "I'm not convinced it's okay for you to know about me. There's a lot in this world you'd be much happier not knowing. I…" he trailed off, then shook his head and said, "but I don't want…" He fell quiet, staring out the window.

"How?" Maddie asked, still not able to wrap her brain around the idea that her memories had been messed with on so many occasions.

"How what?"

"How has my memory been erased that many times?" Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel of her car. "Explain that to me."

Phantom studied her. "Once a ghost reset the time stream so it didn't actually happen. Then there was the guy with a gauntlet that could change anything he wanted. Then there was the one that was haunting your dreams. And a wishing ghost – that was a bad couple of weeks…" Phantom trailed off. "Are you okay?"

"My mind has been messed with on several occasions," Maddie said. Her mind was spinning and her body was tense. "It's sort of a big thing to take in."

"I know," Phantom said quietly.

It was one of those things Maddie had always assumed was sacred – her own mind. Locked away in her thoughts, she could keep any secret she wanted, dabble in any fantasy world she wanted to, or plan and plot new experiments for Fentonworks without worry of government intervention.

This was an extreme violation. The thought of it made her grit her teeth and her mind fill with the desire to take out her brain and wash it in bleach.

"I don't want it to happen to you again."

A shudder raced up Maddie's spine. She closed her eyes and forced herself to put the thought aside for a moment. "When this is over, you and I are having a long conversation about this," she whispered.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, sounding quiet and passive. "Maddie, Vlad's planning to do that to you again and-"

"How?" If she could find out how her mind was being violated, she could stop it from happening-

Phantom stopped. "I don't know," he admitted.

Maddie felt her temper flare. "So you found out enough to put me in danger but not enough for me to fix it," she said, a caustic twist to her voice.

The ghost winced and looked down at his toes. "I guess," he muttered.

"You guess," she repeated, letting out a low breath and staring at the passing cars. "What happens if I just call off the meeting?"

"He'll come and get you," Phantom said dully. "I… I tried to give him something to keep you safe." He pulled at his fingers. "Look, Maddie, I'm sorry. I can't come up with anything to do to fix this. The best I can offer is that I can keep from hurting when he-"

Her fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, making the fake leather creak and groan. "I'm not getting my memory wiped."

Phantom arched an eyebrow. "How?" he asked, sounding really curious.

Her lips pressed tightly together. She threw the car in reverse, backed out of the spot, then into drive and started down the street towards the huge Masters Mansion. "Get out of the car."

He stared at her a long moment. "Can't," he admitted after a second. "Plasmius did something that took away my powers."

She let out a breath out her nose. "Then stay in the car," she said. She took a right onto a new street, able to see the Master's home looming in the distance. "Anything else you're keeping from me that would help right now?"

Phantom hesitated, blinking at her with huge eyes.

"My memory is likely going to be erased before tonight," she snapped. "If there's anything locked in your head that would helpful right now, you should say so."

"Vlad's a hybrid too."

Of all the things Maddie had been expecting, that wasn't one of them. "Vlad?" she whispered. Pieces fell into place. Things that had never really made sense about the man. Comments. Situations. Knowledge. "Anything else?" Her voice sounded slightly weak.

"Lots," he said, "but nothing I could tell you in five minutes that would helpful. And I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" she asked, not really wanting to know but desperate for more information on what she was about to walk in on. Her mind was spinning around, slotting information into place here and there. There were still pieces missing, she could see that, but at least now she knew that there was a puzzle.

Phantom stared down at his toes. "For two years ago," he muttered. "Might as well apologize now before you forget it all."

"What happened two years ago?" She stopped at a light and turned to stare at him.

"It's why Fentonworks fell apart," he said. "It's why the government pulled out of everything. It's why your son failed out of college and his life is falling apart." Phantom chuckled, a deep, morose sound. "And why you don't remember any of it."

Maddie was able to put a few things together in her mind. "Vlad took my memory," she whispered.

"I did," Phantom said.

Even though the light turned green, Maddie didn't put her foot on the gas pedal. The world seemed to have stopped moving. Maddie turned to stare at him. "What?" she whispered.

"It's a really long story," the ghost said, unable to look up at her. "I… I know you don't understand, and I know…" He shivered and sank deeper into the car seat, wrapping his arms around his chest. "I'm sorry."

Cars honked behind her. Maddie shook herself and started the car moving. Her hands were shaking. "What about Jack?" she said.

"I'm working on it," Phantom said. His voice cracked. "He'll be fine."

"Just have his memory wiped," she said. "Like all the other times."

Phantom licked his lips. "Maddie-"

"Don't talk to me right now," she whispered. She couldn't take any more of this. She felt horribly violated. She was afraid that she was walking into a situation she didn't understand – and worse, probably had gone through before. She feared that she would just wake up tomorrow, and the world would be back to the way it had been before – and she was concerned about how good that idea was sounding. She was furious at her government for getting her into this mess and angry at Phantom.

She glanced over at him. The young ghost had his arms wrapped around himself, looking pitiful and broken. "What…" she asked, stopping when her voice sounded rough. She swallowed, then tried again. "What would have happened if you hadn't told me this?"

"Same thing," he said dully. "You just wouldn't have understood why. You would have shown up for a meeting, knowing nothing about me or Vlad, then woken up tomorrow with no memory of the meeting or your government contract." He blinked at her. "I thought… I thought if I told you, you'd have a chance."

"Of remembering?"

He nodded, then shrugged. "I don't know. I just… wanted to give you a chance to do what you wanted, this time."

Gooseflesh ran along her arms at the words 'this time'. It was that signal that she'd gone through this before – they'd gone through this before, it sounded like. A life on repeat. "Oh." She didn't know what to say to that. 'Thank you' sounded wrong.

The mansion was right there. Maddie pulled into a parking spot next to the house and turned the car off. She'd always admired Vlad's house – clean and gorgeous and huge. Now it just looked foreboding and heavy.

"I want you to promise me something," she said.

"Sure."

"That if I don't remember your apology, that you come apologize again." She looked at him. He looked started by her request. "Understand?"

He nodded. "Hey, Maddie," he said as she reached for the door handle.

She paused and looked back at him.

"Good luck."

"Don't come in and get me." Maddie got out of the car, slammed the door shut, and walked up Vlad's front yard.

Vlad met her at the door, the usual smile gone from his face. Without the smile, his blue eyes looked cold and gray. "Maddie," he said.

"Vlad. We have a meeting." Maddie had her hands by her sides, but was unable to stop herself from wrapping her fingers in her clothes.

He nodded and stepped aside, holding the door open for her. "We do." He glanced over her shoulder. "Let's hope your passenger doesn't steal your car while he waits."

Maddie turned to look back, but the door slammed shut behind her. Vlad's eyes glowed an eerie red in the dark shadows.

"Now, Maddie dearest, I think we have to have a chat."

* * *

><p>Jack loved Saturdays. He loved them even more now that he had to work on the other days and couldn't take days off whenever he wanted. Weekends were now to be treasured. Blessed. Held close and coveted.<p>

Although he spent most of the afternoon with his daughter and enjoyed every moment of it, by the time it was starting to get dark, Jack was starting to worry. He hadn't seen his son all day. The boy had vanished just after breakfast – before Jack had gotten up – and hadn't been home since. And his wife had gone to a meeting with Vlad. A short, one hour meeting.

Five hours ago.

He wandered back over to the phone and picked up the handset. A quick dial set Vlad's phone ringing. Jack waited and waited until the answering machine picked up again. Like it'd picked up the last six times. Jack was not normally the worrying sort, able to push aside his thoughts and feelings and deal with them later, but today his wife's lateness had created a knot in his mind that wouldn't go away. It wasn't like her to be this late and not call.

"Dad?" Jazz called from the kitchen. "I'm going to start supper. What do you want?"

Jack slowly set down the handset. "Whatever you make," he answered, disappointed at not getting a hold of his wife. "Or we can order pizza."

"Oh, pizza sounds good." Jazz poked her head out of the kitchen and Jack fixed a smile onto his face. "When's Mom going to be home?"

"Soon," Jack answered, hoping that was true. "You know Mads. She gets caught up in things."

Jazz smiled. "Yes she does." The girl vanished back into the kitchen, allowing Jack to lose the smile and let it slide back into a worried frown. He stared back at the phone, fingers itching to pick it up and try to call yet another time. Hopefully she hadn't gotten hurt. He knew Vlad wouldn't purposefully hurt her, but there were all sorts of accidents that could happen…

With a sigh, Jack headed towards the kitchen. Jazz was working on a jigsaw puzzle they'd dumped out a few hours ago, trying to slot pieces together. It'd been a favorite pastime of theirs over the years, since Jazz wasn't good at circuitry, and they'd used it as an excuse to talk about things without actually having to sit down and discuss things. Her hair was pushed back behind an ear and she was leaning over the board.

"I can't find this piece," she muttered.

Jack settled down into another chair. "I'm sure we'll find it," he said. He bent his head over the board. Over the course of the afternoon, they had wound through tons of topics – Jazz's research, Jack's new job, ghosts, the new latest boyfriend, Fentonworks, ghosts, the new fudge flavor that came out a month ago, and ghosts.

"How's Danny been doing?" Jazz asked, slotting a different piece into place.

Jack pushed through the pieces with his thick fingers. Danny was one of those topics that he wouldn't have broached on his own. The boy was a puzzle all on his own. Jack's response in any other occasion would have been a short 'fine' and moved on with. But with the puzzle in front of him to focus on, more words came out. Granted, most of them were Maddie's words from earlier – but Jack was the one saying them now. "Quiet. Failing out of college again. Staying out all hours of the night. Can't hold down a job for more than a few weeks. Chases all of his friends away…" he trailed off, frowning. It was the first time he'd put all the words together like that and said them at once. How very unlike who his son had been when the boy had been younger. When had Danny's life changed so drastically?

"That's what Mom said," Jazz muttered, picking up a few pieces and fiddling with them. "What'cha gonna do about it?"

Jack frowned at her. "Do?"

"He's struggling," she said with a shrug. "You're his father. Don't you want to do something to help him?"

Jack would never admit to being the greatest father on the planet, but he definitely wasn't that dense. He knew he needed to do something to help his youngest child. He just hadn't known what, and Maddie seemed to have a handle on it with her 'let him have some freedom to fail and we'll be there to catch him if he falls' thing. With no better ideas, and him not generally being very good at emotional tasks, he'd let it go. "Like what?" he asked slowly.

Jazz frowned. "I'm not entirely sure," she admitted slowly. "That's one of the reasons why I came home for the weekend." Her eyes flickered up to the clock. "Where is Danny, anyways?"

"Out," Jack said with a frown. "He'll be home when he gets home." Danny always came home. Reliably about five minutes after he was supposed to be home.

Jazz stared at the clock for a long moment. "I'm going to call him," she said. "Get his order for pizza if nothing else."

Jack watched her go with narrowed eyes. Danny ordered pepperoni and pineapple. He'd ordered pepperoni and pineapple on every pizza for the last ten years. There was no need to ask him for what he wanted on his pizza.

His eyes flickered to the clock as well. Where was Maddie?


	8. Chapter 8

_Thanks nycorrall, Rahne-Aamar, Phantom J. Ryder, The Full Catastrophe, ZoneRobotnik, IvyVine6, Invader Johnny, and Lightning Streak for their reviews!_

* * *

><p><strong>Memory<strong>  
>A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Cori<p>

_What's a memory worth?_

* * *

><p>Vlad's strange little weapon's effect lasted a grand total of two hours.<p>

Then Phantom spent four hours invisibly pacing back and forth in front of Vlad's house, debating between saving his mother and allowing her to deal with it herself. She had requested him not come get her. Besides, his version of a 'smash and grab' generally ended up with a lot more smash and not nearly as much grab. But as each moment passed, he was a little closer to breaking his word and going in after her. As much as he trusted Vlad not to hurt his mother permanently, that trust only extended for so long.

His phone ringing startled him out of his glare. He glanced at the name before putting it to his ear. "Hey, Jazz."

"Where are you? And where's Mom? I thought you said you'd be home hours ago."

"Still in Vlad's house," he answered quietly, glaring up at the mansion. "I'm thinking of going in after her."

"Still?" She sounded startled. "What's going on? Did you tell her what we talked about?"

Phantom sighed. "I told her some of it," he hedged. His sister had been all for the idea of spilling everything to his mother before she left for Vlad's. Of course, Phantom getting trapped with no powers had been a curve ball neither had expected. And they'd both assumed that Vlad would trade the information about the Ring in return for memory. Everything had kind of fallen apart today. "I'm worried about her."

"So what's stopping you from going in there?"

"Because I trust her," he said. "Because she said to not come get her, and I trust her to be right."

"I trust her too," Jazz said. "And Vlad won't hurt her. Come home."

"A little bit longer," he muttered, stepping up to the very edge of the ghost shield. He could cross the shield – it did very little to stop hybrids – but he didn't want to set off all Vlad's alarms.

She let out a breath. "Dad's getting worried. He doesn't say it ever, but I can tell. His smile's getting faker by the minute. I told him I was going to order some pizza. It'd help if you came home and ate with us. Normal family dinner."

Phantom shook his head. "I'm not hungry."

He could practically hear Jazz frown. "You're too skinny, Danny. I'm going to order some pizza and you're going to come home and eat, regardless of whether or not Mom is here."

"I-"

"Now, little brother," she said, her voice hard. "You're going to worry yourself sick standing there. Unless you're planning on going in after her, come home."

Knowing it was pointless to argue when Jazz sunk her teeth into something like this, he offered a compromise. "I'll be home in half an hour."

"I'm watching the clock," she said, then hung up.

Phantom put his phone back in his pocket and stared at the mansion. If he wanted to go rescue his mother, it would have to be now. But he just stood there. Waiting. And just as he was about to flip a coin – heads he went in, tails he went home – the door to Vlad's mansion opened. He tensed as his mother stepped through the door, down the front steps and headed towards the road.

His heart was pounding in his ears and his palms were sweating as he watched her walk to her car and open the door. He was going to let her drive home, fly over the car and confront her later, but he changed his mind at the last second. Phasing through the door, he settled into the passenger seat just as the car started to accelerate.

Her hands were shaking. The hair on one side of her head was tugged out of shape – no doubt from being pushed nervously over her ear time after time. She let out a long, slow breath as she passed the stoplights and left Vlad's mansion behind.

He knew he was going to startle her, but he had no other option. He blinked into visibility. She jerked, swore softly, and then settled back down. "Don't do that," she breathed. "We're going to have to make a rule."

"You remember me?" he asked pointedly.

She frowned at him. "Have you been waiting all this time to ask me that? I told you to trust me. I know Vlad better than anyone…" she trailed off, then shook her head. "Or, at least I thought I did." Her forehead wrinkled. "We came to an arrangement."

Phantom felt his chest tighten. "What kind of arrangement?" he asked. "People don't make arrangements with Vlad that work out well."

"I get to keep my memory," she said slowly, "Jack too."

"In return for…?" Phantom prompted, desperately needing to know what his mother had traded this knowledge for.

His mother stared out the front window, not talking. Her fingers twisted and twined on the steering wheel. There was a paleness to her skin that made Phantom nervous.

"In return for what?" Phantom asked again, turning in his seat so that he was kneeling on the chair, facing her. "Maddie?"

"I wonder if Jack got supper started," she said quietly, completely off the topic at hand.

And just for a second, sitting in the car with his mother, Phantom forgot himself. "Jazz ordered pizza."

He got a split-second view of his mother's wide, hazel eyes before he vanished and phased out of the car. He stood still on the road, invisible and untouchable, listening to his heart beat in his ears. Screwing up and saying the wrong thing around his parents happened all the time. But now she had the pieces to slot together to understand what that little comment might actually mean.

He wasn't sure how he felt about his mother knowing that he was a hybrid. It'd happened before – and it was always reversed before he could really find out how she'd have reacted.

Phantom flew home slowly, weaving back and forth through buildings and down street blocks. He wasn't sure what sort of reception he was going to get when he got home.

It was almost exactly a half-hour from Jazz's phone call before Danny dropped to the ground in front of his home and walked in. Jazz was sitting on the couch, watching TV. "Mom's home," Jazz said when she saw him walk through the door. "She seems fine."

"I know," Danny said. "Saw her just after you called."

"Good." Jazz flipped the TV off and turned around to stare at him. "You look pretty horrible."

Danny scowled at her and toed off his shoes. "Very long day."

"Do you want-"

"No." Danny headed for the kitchen. "And I'm not really all that hungry either."

Jazz said, "I'm here if you want to talk."

With a roll of his eyes, Danny let the door to the kitchen fall closed and scouted around for a clean glass. He could just barely hear his parents' voices – they were probably in the basement. Snagging a glass and filling it with water, he slunk over towards the basement door, trying to overhear their conversation.

"Mads-" It was his father's voice.

"I don't want anyone inside my head," he could hear his mother saying. "And this… this is important. This could change everything."

"We can't use any of it," Jack said. "It won't change anything, Mads. And I don't want you working for him."

Danny felt his throat close up and he backed away from the door. The stress he'd been under today had been bad enough – his mother going to Vlad's to work for him? Just the thought was enough to make him want to break down and cry.

"It's the best solution."

"It's not a solution at all," he whispered. He sank to the ground, frustrated and annoyed with himself. This was all his fault. If he'd have just left well enough alone, she would have… what? Lost her memory again. Gone back to normal. Now, because of his meddling, she was working for the bastard. There was no telling what would happen to her if she was working for him. People who spent enough time around Vlad turned on him. This was even worse than how it had been.

And two years ago she'd lost everything because he meddled in something he shouldn't have. When would he ever learn to leave well enough alone?

"Danny?"

Jazz's voice made him tense up. He glanced at her. "What?"

"What's wrong?" She walked across the kitchen, carrying a few boxes of pizza. Setting them on the table, she walked over to him and sat down next to him. "Danny?"

"Mom's going to go work for Vlad," he said. His voice broke on the last word.

Jazz hesitated. "That's not too horrible," she said slowly, "in comparison."

Danny stared at his sister. She didn't know all of the things Vlad did. Danny had purposefully left her out of the loop on a lot of it. So she didn't understand…

"I mean, he could have killed her. Or seriously hurt her," she said after a beat.

Working for him was only step one of a twenty-step plan. Next it would be something other small thing, to keep something she wanted. Then something else. Then something else. Small, slippery little steps that led into a pit nobody could come out of.

Valerie had thought she knew what she was doing too. Even after she found out about Vlad, and then about Danny. It had taken her only three weeks to fall to Vlad's plan. And she'd died because of it.

Danny had been going down Vlad's little path too – until two years ago. He'd gotten a glimpse of where it was going. It was so easy to slide, so hard to climb back out and get out.

And now his mother had taken her first little, slippery step.

He'd been out of Vlad's little plans for eighteen months. And he wasn't going back. He wasn't going back. Not even to rescue his mother if she started to slide. And she would. Because it was Vlad, and that's what he did.

And rescuing her would be his first, slippery little step. Danny fought down a laugh as he wondered if that was ultimately Vlad's plan - to get Danny back under his control by ensnaring his mother.

"Danny?"

"I'm not hungry," he whispered, pushing himself off the floor and heading up to his room. He locked the door and sat on his bed, staring blankly at the glass of water he'd carried upstairs. He wondered if she'd come talk to him. If she'd put two and two together and she'd come talk to him.

He sat up most of the night, staring at his door, but she never even knocked.

-.-

Maddie's world had turned upside down over the last few days. It was hard to believe that only forty-eight hours ago, she'd been happily convinced that the world turned in the direction she wanted it to. Now everything had changed.

She sat downstairs on the couch. It was nearly three in the morning. The TV showed nothing but static. The occasional car passed by on the street, shining strange lights through the window to dance on the walls in counterpoint to the glow of the TV. But otherwise it was dark and quiet. Everyone had long since gone to bed.

Maddie sat there, eyes closed, telling herself the facts she'd learned. Ingraining them into her mind. Desperate to find something to hold onto after the confusion and chaos of the day.

There was such a thing as a human-ghost hybrid. Vlad was one. Phantom another. Vlad had showed her what being a 'hybrid' meant. Having a ghost form and a human form. Ghost abilities with a human mind. The man had avoided discussing weaknesses, but Maddie had picked up on a few just thinking through her previous conversations with Vlad – obsessive behavior, narcissistic personality, a definite God complex. She wasn't sure if those were particular to Vlad or to all hybrids just yet.

Vlad was… different than she expected. She'd known him for years before the accident that had done this to him. He'd been annoying and self-centered before. These ghost abilities had done nothing but magnify the problem. Seeing his real personality had left her chilled and afraid. Cold. Heartless. Empty.

He'd admitted to experimenting with creating more ghost-human hybrids. Stealing children that had the correct genetic sequences and combining them with ghost material. 'A necessary scientific step forwards,' he'd said. He'd picked the children carefully – kids from group homes, kids with nobody that would miss them, kids with, statistically speaking, no real hope for a future anyways.

The chosen children didn't remember their lives, or the procedure, once he was done. They got new lives. A fortune. A prosperous future. All for the sake of scientific advancement.

Vlad had truly believed what he was doing was for the best - for all of humanity, and for the children he had taken. He'd brushed past all her concerns about how mentally unstable they seemed. He'd given them a better life; it was far from his fault if they didn't chose to make use of it.

Opening her eyes, she looked down at the manila folder she had spread out in front of her. Sitting on top of the stack was a business card for Director Carson. She was supposed to call him when she had the information he needed – proof of what Vlad was doing.

Vlad had explained everything. What would happen to Director Carson now that he'd started this investigation. What would happen if the man actually got his fingers on the information to come after Vlad. How pointless it would be for a ghost-human hybrid to be locked in a jail. How completely over his head Director Carson had gotten, and the price that would be paid for it.

She reached for the phone, dialing in the number for his cell phone before she could stop to think much about it and about what in the world she was going to say. But she had to try to warn him. The phone rang. And rang. And rang. Then someone answered. "Hello?"

"Director Carson? This is Maddie Fenton."

"Ah, Mrs. Fenton. I'm afraid Director Carson is rather… hung up and can't speak to you. I'm an associate of Mr. Masters."

Maddie tensed. Her mouth went dry.

"Mr. Masters informed me you'd be calling. I'll have to apologize. You called a bit later than I was expecting – otherwise I'm sure he would have waited. I know how very much Director Carson wanted to hear from you."

Maddie hung up. She sat there, staring at the phone, shivering. She wasn't cold. Her hands trembled too much to place the handset back in the receiver, so after a few tries, she just let it fall to the ground.

What had she gotten herself in to?

The footsteps behind her were too quiet to be human. "You told me to stay out of this," she whispered.

"Are you okay?" Phantom asked, very softly.

"You warned me and I didn't listen," she said. "People who are involved in this end up dead." She wrapped her arms around her chest, finally turning around and staring at the young hybrid. "Now what?"

Phantom hesitated. His green eyes were eerily iridescent in the dark, shifting and swirling like the Portal always had. "You have to make a choice. Work with Vlad, or don't." He took a tentative step forwards, his eyes never leaving her. Maddie wondered if he was waiting for her to shoot him. "Vlad likes to work in little pieces. Everything's a puzzle to him. Move this here, that there. He can see the big picture, but nobody else can until it's too late." He shook his head. "This job offer – it's just a small piece of something bigger."

"I don't want to lose my memory. I don't want someone digging around in my head." Maddie waved her hand. "I don't want to live in a fake world."

"Then that's your choice," he said. "Free will. One of the joys of being human."

"Vlad's not a nice person," she said.

"Vlad's a horrible person," Phantom muttered. "I'm not even sure Vlad qualifies as a person anymore." He took a deep breath and stepped forwards a bit more. She could feel the cold coming from his skin. "Look. Vlad… he's going to do his best to pull you in deeper and deeper. He'll ask you to do all sorts of things that are just beyond your comfort zone, holding things over your head until you do them. Until one day you'll wake up and you won't recognize yourself." His eyes were dull. "Just be careful."

"He did that to you," she said. The kid had made reference to it before.

He nodded, then looked away. "I made a choice to get out of it. And a lot people paid a really big price. And some of them still are." Guilt crept into his eyes. "But…" he shook his head.

"Fentonworks was part of it. Two years ago."

Phantom nodded again. "Vlad controls a lot more of the government than you want to believe. When I refused to have anything more to do with him, he went through with a few of the threats he'd been hanging over my head."

"Why was Fentonworks part of the threat?" She stared at him. At the pale, drawn expression. At the worry in his eyes. At the way he ran his hand through his hair to rest on the back of his neck. At the frustration, the depression, the longing for something to change in his life.

Perhaps she already knew. Somewhere deep inside, she'd known this before, and just been made to forget it. And this time, she was bound and determined to hold on to the memory.

"Vlad doesn't have anything to hold over me that hurts just me anymore," he said. "I stopped caring years ago."

"So now he goes after your family," she said. "And your friends," she added, when she realized why Danny caustically chased away any and every friend that got too close.

With a shrug, Phantom looked away. "Can't hold anything over my head if I don't have anything."

"That's a sad way to live," she whispered.

There was another little half-shrug. "It's better than the alternative."

"Are you gonna tell me what really happened two years ago?" When the boy made no move to speak, Maddie got to her feet and walked around the couch, stopping right in front of him. "Danny," she said.

He looked at her. He was almost exactly the same height as her – perhaps a half-inch taller when he stood up straight. It had always bugged her why Danny was so skinny and short, and now she was starting to get answers. But she was also terrified of what those answers would be.

"I don't know if I want you to know," he said.

"And I don't know if I want to know," she added honestly. "But secrets aren't going to help anyone right now."

Phantom glanced away, chewing on his lip. Then white light sparkled around him, blinding for just a moment, before dying away. And his green eyes had turned blue. The hair was black and messy. And he looked even more tired than before. "Mom."

She pulled him into a hug. "You've got to tell me, Sweetheart." Leading him to the couch, she sat down and pulled him down next to her. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders, keeping him close.

"I was a good person," Danny whispered. "I just… Vlad… he got into my head."

Maddie didn't say anything. She knew that if she interrupted him, he might not keep going.

"It was… it was almost the end of senior year. Vlad was holding a lot of things over my head. College, and Sam, and Tucker, and…" He shook his head. "And he said he'd stop those experiments if I helped him. So I was doing things for him. Stupid little jobs and stuff. I really didn't even think about it, or care much about it. It was a really small price to pay." His forehead wrinkled. "What do you remember?"

It never failed to give her a headache when she tried to remember exactly what happened over those few months. At least, now she knew why that was. "Not a lot. There were some ghosts. A lot of people got hurt."

Danny was very quiet a long moment. She could feel him trembling. "I… I didn't… mean for anybody to get hurt." When he tried to pull away, she tightened her grip. She knew he'd get away if he really wanted to – but she wanted to show him that she wanted him to stay there. He stopped and settled back against her. "Ghosts come here all the time. Vlad and I are like magnets, sometimes. One day all of these ghosts show up and Vlad tells me to make them go away. And they wouldn't."

A memory stirred in Maddie's mind. Phantom, standing in the middle of a street splattered with ectoplasm, looking completely broken.

"They were attacking people. Actually hurting them." Danny's voice was empty and raw. "Killing them. I didn't realize until afterwards that Vlad had planned this. He made sure I had no way to stop them, except the way he wanted me to. I was a little puzzle piece, and he put me right where he wanted me to go." He shivered. "I destroyed them. It was just ghosts, and evil ones at that, but… It was a step on a slippery slope."

"Vlad was trying to teach me to kill. To teach me that taking someone's existence was something you could do – a means to an end. But I didn't know that. All I knew that was the ghosts were attacking more and more frequently. And that I started killing them. And I slowly started to stop caring. They were just ghosts. I was protecting people."

Maddie closed her eyes a moment, trying to remember more of the fights. Other than snapshots of reading it in the newspaper, her mind was blank. Surely she had witnessed some of the fights.

"I thought it'd get better when I went to college. Vlad wouldn't follow me. That'd I'd be done with his stupid little games. But he just moved on. More steps. He had me stealing things for him. Getting things. Spying on people."

There were tears in his eyes. Maddie wondered if he'd ever talked through what had happened two years ago with anyone. Or if he'd been keeping it bottled up inside all this time.

"Then he started holding them over my head. His little experiments. They didn't know any better. He'd brainwashed them into thinking he was some sort of God. They'd die for him if he gave so much as a word. And he would – if I didn't do what he wanted. Just… mess with people's minds a little. Possess someone to get them to sign something. To get a little better deal on something. To learn a secret."

"Danny?" she said, when the boy just sat there, perfectly still.

"It was so slow. I didn't even see it coming," he whispered. "I'm not a bad person." He turned and stared at her, as if he could see what she was feeling and thinking through her eyes.

"It's okay," she said, pulling him in a bit tighter. He leaned against her, resting his head on her shoulder. "What changed? Why'd you stop?"

He picked at his fingers. "Vlad wanted to start up his experiments again. He wanted me to get a kid for him – he'd already picked her out. Gave me every reason why nobody would care that she was gone. How her life would be better, especially now that he had the flaw in the system worked out and she'd be stable." He shivered. "He made great pains to explain to me how her one life was balanced against everything I cared about. It was just one little girl." His breath came out shaking. "I was going to do it. I was so close."

"Did you?"

He shook his head and pulled away from her just long enough to grab one of the pictures from the manila folder. It was the girl. "She reminded me of her. Suzie. Or Danielle. Or whatever she ended up wanting her name to be. Same blue eyes. I was going to grab her when she turned and stared at me. And all I could think about was what it had to have been like for Suzie years earlier, being kidnapped by some crazy person. Only that crazy person had been Vlad. And then it was me." He traced a finger over her face. "And that was when I realized how far down the slide I'd gotten."

"You let her go?"

"She never even knew I was there," he said blearily. "I spent two days holed up in my dorm room, then went to visit Vlad and tell him I was done working for him."

Maddie figured she knew what day that had happened. The fight between Phantom and Plasmius two years ago was burned into a lot of people's memories.

"He… didn't agree with me. I should have killed him."

Maddie froze at hearing those words. "What?" she asked.

He was shaking his head. "I had him. I had him beat. He was lying on the ground, nearly unconscious. I could have easily killed him."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because it's wrong. Killing people that get in your way? That's Vlad's way of handling the world." Danny sounded distant. "Because I had promised that I wasn't going to every use my powers against a human ever again. Because I wasn't going to kill someone – even if I think he deserved it." He looked at her. Green flickered deep in his eyes. "Because I'm not God. I don't get to chose who lives and who dies. Even if it's Vlad." Then he looked away.

"So Vlad took it out on everyone," Maddie said, filling in the blanks. "The government taking our contracts like that. Sam's family getting sued and losing almost everything. Tucker's parents getting fired and forced to move."

Danny was staring down at his hands. "I'm sorry."

"You did the right thing," Maddie said softly. When Danny jerked his head in her direction, she smiled and repeated the sentiment. "You did the right thing. If the Mansons or the Foleys understood when happened, they'd agree with me."

"I know," Danny breathed.

He leaned against her, his warmth a solid base for Maddie's swirling thoughts. It was like her mind didn't know where to settle. So many things were settling into place. So many questions that had plagued her for years were finally getting answers.

Then she remembered something. His apology in the car. "You erased my memory two years ago," she whispered.

He jerked away from her, and she let him go. He ended up at the other end of the couch, his face pale and his eyes wide. "You… you'd… when Vlad was knocked unconscious, he turned human again. You were there."

She remembered - a flutter of memory from the darkness. The black light. The blood. Phantom standing over Vlad, looking absolutely murderous. She'd raised a gun to shoot him… No, she'd shot him. A winging shot that sent him tumbling into a building.

She'd walked up to Vlad, to help him, to understand what had happened – but Vlad hadn't been unconscious anymore. He was sitting up, staring at her, leering at her with that cold, murderous look in his eyes. When he'd grabbed her gun, she'd let go. He was Vlad Masters, her husband's best friend.

Then Vlad had put a gun to her head, held her there. Phantom had come back, covered in ectoplasm, more leaking onto the ground. And Vlad had given him a choice. Phantom could make her forget, or he'd do it. Permanently.

"I remember," she whispered. She put a hand to her head, leaning back against the couch, tears stinging her eyes. "You saved my life."

Danny's eyes were red and puffy from the tears. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I… I didn't want…"

"Danny."

But he disappeared. Between one breath and the next, Danny was gone.

Maddie sat up the rest of the night, curled up under a blanket on her couch, and tried to put all the facts she had in order. Over and over she played through everything she knew.

By the time morning came, she almost wished she didn't remember. For a few seconds, it was a blissful idea. It would get all of this out of her head and she'd just be back to normal. But she knew it would do nothing to help Danny… that boy was in deep.

So she took a deep breath, folded up the blanket, and went to start a pot of coffee.


End file.
